Danny Phantom: Do Overs
by Catadmin
Summary: Danny becomes ill after a fight with ghost cats, but that's the least of his problems. One of his worst enemies is removing both family & friends, part of a scheme to fix old mistakes & create a new future where Danny Phantom is no longer Danny Fenton.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Notes:_ I started writing this after "Reign Storm" and before "Ultimate Evil". Rather than change what I've written, I'm going to leave it sandwiched somewhere in between.

Additionally, I know the topics and villian of the piece have been tackled in plenty of other fanfics. Forgive me if you feel like I'm stepping on toes. I actually only started this piece as a writing exercise to get me out of a writer's block funk on an original piece of fiction I was working on. I was bugged to post (and share) what little I've got, so here is the first bit. Chapter 2 will come along either later tonight or tomorrow.

**_Disclaimer_** - **Dis all be Butch's stuff**, except for the strange plot idea which I got after watching waaaaay too manyre-runs of "Bitter Reuinons". ) There are NO original characters in this piece. There are NO pairings in this piece. This is good, ole' fashioned, as the show/movies tell it, Danny Phantom story telling. IMHO, Butch's baby is too good to ruin by adding things he hasn't added yet.  
Also, I'm trying to keep my writing style in the style, and spirit (pun not intended), of the show. Please keep that in mind as you read my own little homage to Butch's grand creation.

Comments welcome!

Catadmin

_Danny Phantom – "Do Overs"_

_Two Weeks Ago –_

"My turn. My turn!" yelled the six year old child running across the park after a group of kids carrying a ball.

He sat above them quietly, floating invisibly upon a cushion of nothingness at tree-top height. He had no desire to disrupt the children's play. Only to watch it and attempt to fathom its mysteries from a view skewed by years of harsh experience. He hated failure, had tasted it lately nearly as often as he had tasted the thrill of success. It was the simplest mistakes that haunted his sleep. The ones he should have been able to avoid. He was too smart to have underestimated his enemy.

Except the enemy had a way of surprising him on occasion. Had, at least twice, gotten the upper hand by preying on his own predictable weaknesses. There had to be a better way to achieve his goals without sucumbing to those temptations.

A shriek of pure joy echoed up from the playground below as the mass of children ran back the other way, chasing the maroon sphere which was the coveted prize. Some children chased others, trying to tag and not be tagged in return. Others simply threw themselves at the bouncing ball, certain they could fetch it before anyone else could. One enterprising youth didn't just chase the ball, he maneuvered around the side in a wide arc that placed him squarely in front of it long enough for him to kick it in the other direction.

Ah. Clever move. The watching presence knew that trick already. It was one he had long given up in favor of more complicated strategies. Still, sometimes the best moves could be the simplest. The maneuver had displayed both patience and foresight, something he thought he was good at. And yet, twice he had made the mistake of being too eager, impatient even, revealing his plans before he was prepared for the consequences. Humiliating defeat had been handed to him, instead of victory. A loss of control that he regretted, even to this day and which now he wished he could have avoided, even if he did have a better understanding of the enemy's capabilities.

He sighed heavily, watching the twisting mass of children dance around, playing their game as if there were no worries in the world. Yes, he was on top. Two out of four battles had gone his way. But two out of four was not nearly as good as four out of four and there was the potential, the slim possibility, that as cleverly as he plotted the next encounter, the enemy would find a way to hand him defeat yet again.

Another shriek, this one less pleased than the last. He pointed his attention in the direction of the high-pitched sobs, only to see the first girl on the ground, claw marks on her arm and a small tabby, its back arched and fur spiked, spitting mad at her. Her cries drew the attention of most of the crowd, making the youth angling for the ball miss it with his kick. The boy went down in the dust with a thud. Someone else snatched it away from him and ran for the imaginary goal they had been playing towards. As the children milled around, a few running for parental authority to solve the girl's cries of pain, the youth climbed to his feet. "Do over!" the boy shouted. "That wasn't fair, Aubrey! I want a do over!"

_Do over. Ah, if life were only that simple, where everything could be done over if you did it wrong the first time,_ the invisible presence thought. He could definitely benefit from a do over if he could do it over and still remember what had happened the first time around. If he had a do over, he wouldn't be so cocky this time, wouldn't reveal himself so soon. Patience was the key.

The children had gathered into a mass, the youth and this Aubrey child at the center each yelling at the top of their lungs. "Do over!" "Will not. It was fair!" "No one was paying attention!" "So what? Not my fault." "Stupid cat. I wish..."

"Children. Children, that is enough!" shouted one of the parents.

The presence blinked in sudden comprehension. _Do over_, the words echoed in his head. And why not. After all, where there was a will, there was a way.

Perhaps there were lessons that could be learned on the playground for someone his age.

He smiled grandly, his eyes glowing bright with delight. "Oh, yes. That will work perfectly. Time, I think, for a complete 'do over'." He stretched out his legs and soared up into the sky, glancing down at the ruckus below him and spotting the tabby who had caused the incident sitting alone under a tree washing its paws. "And in that spirit, maybe I'll actually take my foe's advice, too."

"I do believe it's time for me to get a cat."

_---------------------------------------------_

_The Night Before –_

_I am not going to scream_, she thought to herself.

_I am not going to scream. I am not going to scream. I am _not _going to scream._

The resolution gave her little comfort. She was already gasping for air, leaving little tendrils of steam in her wake as she sprinted down the empty street towards the park. The chill of the evening constricted her chest, making breathing difficult. She had a moment to consider the wisdom of taking up track - given all the running she was forced to do this last year, track might actually be a benefit - before dismissing the random thought. The last thing she wanted was to be labeled a jock. Or worse, for someone to question why a goth chick would get into sports. Besides, track practice would cut into her other extra-circular activities.

Like running for her life.

Fourteen year old Samantha Manson, Sam to her friends, grabbed the top of the park's wrought iron fence with one hand and used it as a pivot point to vault over the top. She felt her plaid skirt snag on one of the points, heard it tear as her feet hit the ground on the other side. Bad landing. Her left ankle twisted underneath her, causing her to stumble. Pain flared up her leg. She barely managed to stay upright. The eager pants of her pursuer echoed through the empty night, getting closer with every second.

_Run, you idiot. Before it catches you!_

So, she ran, stiletto sharp knives of pain coursing up her leg every time she stepped on the weakened ankle. Her speed was considerably lessened now, due to the unanticipated injury. Her pursuer was getting closer. She could almost smell the stench of dead fish which emanated from it. She wanted to curse. She really wanted to scream. This wasn't the plan. She wasn't supposed to be the bait.

And yet, here she was, running from the enemy, all alone and defenseless because they had all expected it to be somewhere else.

_Danny, where are you?_

No one replied to the thought. She could have yelled it aloud and still not gotten a reply. Danny and Tucker were busy lying in wait for this thing in a building on the other side of the park. The trap should have worked. That it hadn't was evident by the fact that her pursuer had shown up tonight at her favorite bookstore during a reading by one of her favorite, and appropriately obscure, horror writers. Strangely enough, it had been the author who had been the most terrified. His audience, a collection of goths, wanna-be occultists and neo-vampire enthusiasts had simply sat there, commenting on the brilliance of his vision in staging a ghost visitation. That is, until the ghost in question started tearing the place apart.

Her foot caught on the exposed root of a tree and her ankle gave way under a new onslaught of pain. Sam slammed against the cold ground, what little air she had in her lungs expelled from the force of her fall. She lay gasping on the ground, desperately trying to banish the pain away into a small corner of her brain while gulping in as much air as she could. _I am not going to scream…_

A snarl, deep and vicious, sounded behind her. Hot, steamy breath cascaded across her back. Green saliva dripped on the ground beside her, sizzling as it hit and dissolved the grass, leaving nothing but acid-scarred patches of dirt in its wake. Sam rolled over on her side, heart pounding in terror as she realized she was caught. Red eyes, as bright as little l.e.d.s, shined brilliantly in the darkness. Glowing fangs were bared close to her shoulder and she could hear claws ripping into the turf around her. A loud growl rang through the night as the giant cat-like creature sniffed at her, then snapped at her.

Her black bangs were blown back by the force of its rotten-fish smell breath. This thing definitely looked hungry.

Her options were limited. She couldn't run. There was nothing within reaching distance that she could use as a weapon, even if she could find a weapon that could hurt a creature who could go intangible at will. She couldn't call Danny or Tucker because her cell phone had been trashed in the bookstore in the initial chaos of the monstrous ghost's rampage. She had two options left. Three, if one counted being eaten. Faint or scream.

Sam was no fluffy socialite to faint at the slightest hint of trouble. Mansons were made of sterner stuff. She chose to ignore her initial resolution. She decided to scream.

"HELP!"

They were just across the park. Sounds tended to echo around this area. There was a chance Danny and Tucker would hear her. Wasn't there?

The ghost chuckled. Or snarled. It certainly sounded the same. The ghost padded forward, lifting a paw with scimitar shaped claws extended, snapping its jaws together in anticipation. Sam scooted back, only to smack into the tree whose traitorous root had tripped her. Saliva dripped again from the creature's mouth, landing on said root and eating into it. The poor defenseless root would never trip anyone again. Her heart went out to the tree as the ghost stalked closer. She wondered if ectoplasmic acid was bio-degradable or a persistent environmental toxin. If this tree suffered permanent damage because of her, she would never forgive herself.

The ghost stalked closer, its eyes shining in anticipation. It rested its outstretched paw on side the tree and hovered over her.

Then again, if the ghost cat ate her, she would never forgive herself either. Stupid ankle. Maybe taking up track wouldn't be such a bad idea. The creature sniffed at her again, then opened its mouth wide as it leaned down. Sam crossed her arms over her head protectively, knowing the gesture wouldn't help, but unable to do anything else. This was it. Time to bid farewell to life as she knew it.

Would she become a ghost if she died?

"Leave her alone!"

She never had time to ponder the answer to her question. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw a bolt of bright green light slam into the side of her assailant. The cat ghost was knocked over and past her by the blast and yipped in pain as it fell on the ground. It managed to get back to its feet fairly quickly, though, and turned towards the boy who had attacked it.

Sam sighed in relief. To the other side of her stood, or rather floated, a fourteen year old boy in a black jumpsuit with green eyes and white hair. The expression on his face was one of anger and determination. He barely spared her a glance other than to verify she was in one piece, but she didn't complain. She'd rather he take down the cat ghost first anyway.

The cat snarled and lunged at the floating boy, claws extended. The boy dodged to the side, going intangible so the claws passed harmlessly through him. "So you want to play. Fine. Let's play," the boy commented grimly. He raised a hand, glowing green with ectoplasmic energy and shot at the cat's backside. The cat was fast. The blast almost missed it, only singed the cat's tail instead of hitting it solidly like the boy had intended.

"Sam, get out of there!" a voice came from the bushes twenty feet away from the ensuing battle.

Sam turned to the voice, seeing a disembodied head with glasses and a red beret poking out of the bushes. "Love to, Tucker, but I twisted my ankle. I can't get up."

Tucker Foley, one of Sam's two absolute best friends in the world, grimaced. "Hang on. I'll be right there. Danny," he shouted to the floating boy, Sam's other best friend, as the boy dodged another cat attack. "Keep that thing busy. I've got to help Sam."

"What would you like me to do, Tucker? Invite it to dance?" Danny Phantom, the self-appointed guardian of Amity Park , asked sarcastically as the cat opened its mouth and spit acid saliva at him. He dodged most of the spit, but yelped as some of it landed on his shoulder and ate through his jumpsuit. "Okay, that's just gross. And you messed up my favorite jumpsuit! You are so going down, Cat!" He blasted the cat, finally hitting it full on a second time, further into the park.

Sam closed her eyes and sighed. She could hear the stress layered thickly through her friend's voice and felt a twinge guilty for being partially responsible. Still, it wasn't like she had asked the ghost cat to show up in the wrong place. Danny could be such a dimwit sometimes.

A rustle of vegetation caused her to open her eyes and look up. Tucker knelt beside her, picking prickly burrs out of his shirt. "You would think someone would take some time to weed this place. It is supposed to be a public park after all." He grinned down at Sam to show he wasn't deliberately being callous. "You asked for help?"

She blinked. "You heard that?"

"We both did. We were heading back across the park when you yelled." He put her arm across his shoulder and carefully lifted her back to her feet.

"Gave up on the trap then?"

Tucker snorted as he adjusted her weight against him. She kept her injured foot raised in the air, waiting patiently as he got comfortable. When he nodded, she hopped forward with him, letting him half-carry her away from the site of her fall. "Nope," he replied. "We actually caught the cat ghost. As far as I know it's still in the Fenton Thermos."

Sam looked up in surprise. "You caught it? That means…"

"There's more than one, apparently. Which explains why there were so many sightings the past couple of days in so many different places" Tucker frowned in the direction of the on-going ghost battle. "The first one was a lot easier to catch than this one is, though."

Danny yelped again. He was on the ground with the cat ghost pinning him tightly down, saliva dripping onto his arms and legs. Sam bit her lower lip in frustration. She wanted to help. She should be able to help. A exchanged glance with Tucker reflected the same concern and frustration in his eyes. If only they could do something other than watch their best friend fight the good fight and get hurt in the process. They didn't say the words aloud, though. They didn't need to. Both understood how the other felt.

Tucker helped Sam over to an out-of-the-way picnic table where she stretched out her left leg on the bench. It was definitely swelling, she could tell from the way her boot fit around it. She reached over to undo her laces, but Tucker caught her hands. "Better let it be, Sam. The boot can contain the swelling until we get you home where you can put ice on it. Take it off now and it'll only get worse. "

"If I don't take it off now, I may have to cut my boot off!" she hissed angrily, and instantly regretted the snap in her voice.

Tucker shrugged nonchalantly, refusing to take offense. "You're rich, remember? You can afford another pair of boots."

"'Scuse me. Ultra recyclo-vegatarian, remember?" she shot back. "I don't eat things with a face and I don't buy things made out of their hides, either. Do you know how hard it is to find boots made out of recycled nylon carpet? It took me months to get these boots and if I try to buy another pair, my mom will use it as an excuse to change my wardrobe by purchasing heels for me." Sam shuddered at the awful thought. Her mother was always trying to get her to dress like a lady.

"You're forgetting one thing. Danny's half ghost."

Tucker looked so proud of his pronouncement that Sam looked up at him in confusion. "Uh, Tucker, I already knew that."

Tucker blinked, then shook his finger at her. "You're missing the point, Sam. As a half ghost, he has the ability to phase through objects or make objects intangible."

"So?"

"So, he can phase your boot right off your foot without having to damage it."

Sam flushed in embarrassment. "Oh. Right." She knew that. Really. Stupid ankle and stupid fall. Her foot was throbbing so badly, it was hard to think of anything else right now.

A familiar flash lit up the park behind her. She turned to look over her shoulder and saw Danny pointing a regular sized thermos at the cat ghost. Bluish-white light cascaded out of it, surrounding the cat, absorbing the cat and pulling the cat inside. _How many ghosts can you fit inside a thermos?_, she asked herself as she watched the ghost boy put the cap back on.

"Finally." Tucker sounded as relieved as she felt.

Danny floated over to them, his jumpsuit scorched and torn. There were red weals on his arms and legs where the acid at burned through. Sam winced at the same time Tucker did. Danny looked in worse shape then she felt. He landed beside the table, a circle of white light surrounding his midriff, then splitting into two. One shot up over his torso, arms and head, while the other shot down his legs. In their wake, they left a very scruffy fourteen year old, black haired, blue eyed boy, one Danny Fenton, with a torn tee-shirt and jeans who flopped down on the ground and starred up at the sky.

"Done now," he said. "Wake me up when summer vacation starts."

His voice sounded so normal when he was in his human form. Unlike the deeper sounding, staircase-echo voice he had when he was Danny Phantom. Sometimes Sam could hardly believe the ghost and the boy were the same person, despite the fact that they looked so much alike.

Well, except for the whole hair color and eye color and intangible thing, that is. Danny Phantom belonged to her. Her and Tucker. No one else would ever know the secrets she kept locked behind her teeth. Not even Paulina, the shallow, popular bubble-head that Danny, for reasons unknown to anyone, had a huge crush on.

_All mine._

She smiled, a crooked smile, at the thought.

"What are you grinnin' at?" Tucker asked her.

Danny titled his head and looked up questioningly at the two sitting on the picnic table.

"Uh, I was just thinking that – that it might be nice to get a cat as a pet." She waved a hand in the air to distract them, and herself, from what she had really been thinking. "You know, because they are so independent minded, don't require a lot of attention…"

"And spit acid when they're mad?" Danny finished for her. He let his head drop back on the grass. "Don't even joke about that, Sam! After tonight, I officially hate cats."

"What I hate," she commented, pointing at her watch, "Is getting grounded for missing curfew. It's nine fifty and I don't think I can hobble all the way home on this ankle."

Danny jumped to his feet like he had been electrified. "Oh, man! I didn't realize it was that late!"

Tucker stood and dusted off his pants. "Me either. My PDA alarm didn't even go off at nine thirty like it's supposed to! I'd better get a move on. See you guys tomorrow?"

"Ankle permitting." Sam slid her leg off the bench and tried, and failed, to stand on it. Fortunately, Danny was there to catch her.

"Maybe I'd better fly you home."

"You'll be late. Your dad will be furious." Despite being grateful for the offer, her ankle felt like a lead balloon and definitely wouldn't hold her weight, she felt the need to remind him of the consequences.

Danny gave a half-hearted laugh. "I'm getting used to being grounded. Besides, you don't look like you can walk right now. Going ghost!"

Another circle of light appeared around him and he switched from Danny Fenton to Danny Phantom without hesitation. He put his right arm around her waist and lifted her left arm around his neck before shooting up with her into the evening sky. They both waved goodnight to Tucker's retreating form before Danny turned and headed towards her house.

Strangely enough, her foot hurt just as badly flying in the air as it did when she tried to walk on it. She tried to think of something else, anything else, to get her mind off the pressure. Her only consolation at the moment was that the flight, as opposed to the walk, home would be short.

"You okay, Sam?" The concern in his voice was reflected in his green eyes.

She tried not to squirm. Mansons were made of sterner stuff than this. A little hurt like this would not make her cry. Not when one of her two best friends had wounds that made her twisted ankle look as pitiful as a broken fingernail. She could see his pain in the set of his face, but he hadn't even complained. "I'm fine."

He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it as if he had changed his mind.

"Really, Danny. I'm fine."

"Where did the other cat come from?" He changed the subject. "And why was it chasing you?"

She focused her thoughts away from her ankle and gave a brief description of what happened at the bookstore. "I don't know why it showed up there. I tricked it into chasing me instead of any of the others," she finished. "I thought if I could lead it over to you, we could still trap it. Definitely did not expect it to be so fast, though."

"Sam," he sighed, "I wish you wouldn't do that. You know how dangerous ghosts can be."

"So I just should have let it chase someone else instead? And possibly hurt them?"

"Yes! I mean, no. I mean…" Confused, he gave up. "Darnit, Sam, if you or Tucker got seriously hurt in one of these fights, I'd never forgive myself."

Sam shook her head. "Better one of us, who at least knows and accepts the dangers, than some innocent bystander. Don't forget, I did achieve my goal. I led the ghost right to you."

Arriving at Sam's house, Danny turned intangible, phasing both of them through Sam's closed window, then solidified and let her gently down on her bed. "Without so much as a scratch, of course, which is why your ankle looks like a grapefruit right now," he chided.

Sam made a face at him. "It's just twisted. Now if you could get me some ice from downstairs and take my boot off, I'll be fine."

It was ten after ten before Danny finished getting Sam settled to his satisfaction. The overwhelming guilt he felt because of her injury had caused him to hover over her, literally speaking, until she had finally yelled at him to go home and leave her alone. He hated it when Sam yelled at him, but she had a point. He was a ghost, not a doctor, and there was little he could do to fix her ankle. Leaving her room, he wearily took to the sky. Thankfully, the flight home occurred without incident. No additional ghosts drew the attention of his eyes or his ghost sense.

Instead of walking through the front door, where he might encounter angry parents, he flew directly to his room, changing back into his Fenton half. He'd have to come up with an excuse before breakfast as to how he slipped past his parents who were no doubt waiting in the living room for him to come home. Still, he wasn't worried about them so much as he was worried about the itchy, sore spots dotting his arms and legs which didn't go away, and actually hurt worse, when he changed from ghost back to human.

He put the Fenton thermos carefully on his desk, he could always dump the ghost cats back into the ghost zone later, and peeked out of the door to make sure no one was watching. Sneaking out of his room, he ran down the hall to take a quick shower. Maybe he could wash off the acid. Hopefully, he could get rid of the damage before Jazz or his parents saw it. There was no telling how they might react if they knew he was hurt like this.

_Then again, knowing Mom and Dad, they would automatically assume, and correctly for once, that a ghost had done this. I'd never be able to leave the house unescorted again. Not until they had convinced themselves they had caught the spectral culprit._

Danny sighed heavily as he undressed. Living a secret double-life was supposed to be exciting, according to the comic books. His life, on the other hand, was a badly performed juggling act. Not only did he have to constantly fight ghosts who were constantly trying to gain power or, strangely enough, conquer the human world, but he had to keep his ghost-half secret from his parents, a couple of over-obsessive ghost hunters who would gladly capture and experiment on any ghost in reach if given the proper opportunity. He didn't dare tell them he was half-ghost. As much as he wanted to believe they would love him and accept him in spite of the ghost issue, a part of him was terrified he might end up on the wrong end of one of his father's ghost probes.

"Danny? Danny, are you up here?"

His sister's voice, coming from the hallway. At least it wasn't his mom. "Taking a shower, Jazz."

"Oh," she paused for a moment, then added, "Okay. I'll let Mom and Dad know you've…been upstairs studying."

Danny turned his head towards the bathroom door. Upstairs studying? Jazz knew he had gone out with Tucker earlier, so why would she lie to Mom and Dad about it? She had gotten so cryptic and strange the past few months. Almost as if she had to come up with excuses for his behavior to satisfy her own bizarre cravings for family normalcy._ Jazz is not my problem right now. The acid is. Get it off first, then worry about everything else._

The shower's hot water temporarily soothed the weals, but the addition of soap nearly made him shriek in agony. Fortunately, he was able to keep from screaming. Unfortunately, he bit through his lower lip to keep from screaming and was now bleeding from his mouth. Drying himself was definitely not a fun exercise. The weals had started to seep, a bright green puss dripping out of their edges. And now they were starting to sting in a very painful way.

"So much for the towel." He grimaced at the green stains, knowing he could never slip the towel in the laundry without his mother noticing. He put a robe on and wrapped the towel up into a bundle with his clothes. When he was satisfied no one would see him, Danny ran back to his room, shut the door and shoved the dirty bundle in the back of his closet. He carefully pulled on his pajamas, turned off his light, and slipped under the bedcovers.

Despite the throbbing pain in his arms and legs, the exhausted teenage boy was sound asleep the instant his head touched his pillow.

Outside Danny Fenton's window, two bright red circles of light glowed momentarily. If he had been awake, he would have recognized them as a pair of eyes, floating in the air without a head or body attached. As it was, though, Danny was too far gone into sleep to see the eyes, or notice the sudden dip in temperature in his room.

A small wisp of chilled breath escaped the sleeping boy's mouth as an invisible presence slipped through the wall of his room. The presence froze for a moment, waiting for a reaction. When there was none, the presence moved over to the desk, picked up the Fenton thermos and phased it halfway through the window before removing the cap and releasing the two ghost cats inside of it. "Home," it commanded quitely.

The two large cat spirits hissed in response, turned and launched themselves towards the ground. As their paws hit the streets, they became transparent, unnoticable by the naked human eye, and loped off into the distance. The presence recapped the thermos and made sure to replace it in the exact spot the boy had left it.

Danny groaned in his sleep, rolling to his side. Another whisp of chilled breath escaped his mouth and he still did not awaken.

The presence floated over to the boy's side and ruffled his black hair with an invisible hand. "Sleep well, Little Badger," a deep male voice whispered softly, almost affectionately. "You're going to need your rest for what's ahead."


	2. Chapter 2

_Now –_

Danny didn't even remember his alarm clock going off. One moment, he was dreaming about fighting the cat ghosts again, the next moment, he was standing in front of the bathroom mirror brushing his teeth. He prepared himself for school in a haze of exhaustion, shivering from the cold permeating the house. The temperature must have dipped during the night, but house rules said the central heat could not be turned on until the daytime temperatures went below sixty. Today was going to be warm and sunny, so he was just going to have to put up with the morning cold. Groaning, he pulled on clean clothes, gathered his books and trudged downstairs, never even noticing the weals from last night's fight had completely vanished.

At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped, shivered violently, then blinked in surprise. _Downstairs? How did I get here?_ He looked down to make sure he wasn't still wearing his pajamas. Nope. Jeans and tee-shirt. His socks didn't match, but he didn't particularly care right now. "Why does morning have to be so early?" he groaned to himself. Dumping his books on the living room table, Danny shuffled tiredly into the kitchen.

"Good morning, Sweetie," his mother, Maddie Fenton said brightly as she sat on one side of the table with his father, Jack, working on yet another ghost hunting device. Sunlight glittered on her short, red hair through the kitchen window. Because she was working, she wore her usual blue hazmat jumpsuit with black gloves, belt and boots.

"Morning, Son!" his dad declared. A large, and somewhat muscular, man with black hair blazed on the edges with white, his dad sometimes reminded him of the Goodyear blimp dressed as he was in his orange hazmat jumpsuit with its matching black gloves, belt and boots.

"Mffnrrm," Danny mumbled in reply, unable to put further effort into clarifying his response. _Sugar. Must have sugar._ He opened up the cereal cabinet, rooting around for the box of Frosted Chocolate Bombs he liked to eat. Finding it, he put it on the counter and turned to find a bowl and spoon.

"Danny, watch where you're going!" Jazz protested as he nearly ran her down. When had she snuck into the kitchen?

"Ssssrrryy," he mumbled back.

Bowls. Where were the bowls. He blinked owlishly at the cabinets trying to remember which one the bowls were kept in. Someone grabbed his arm, swinging him around. Blue eyes slightly darker than his own stared at him in sudden alarm as his older sister towered over him.

"Danny?" Jazz asked. "Are you okay?"

"Mm fine." He pulled away from her grasp, located the cupboard with the bowls and grabbed one for his cereal. Now he just needed a spoon. Where the heck were the spoons?

"Mom, Dad," Jazz was talking again, but her voice sounded like she was standing in the stairwell leading down the lab in the basement. "I think something's wrong with Danny."

Aha. There was the drawer. Now if he could just get his fingers around the handle. For some reason, he just couldn't get a grip on it. After a couple of tries, he had the drawer open, then stared at it, trying to remember what he wanted from it. _Not a morning person,_ he grumbled to himself in his thoughts. _Wanna go back to bed._

"There's something wrong with Danny?" The sound of chairs overturning reached Danny's ears at the same time as his mother's worried voice.

"Does it have something to do with ghosts?" his father asked earnestly.

Spoon. That's what he was looking for. He tuned out whatever nonsense his parents and Jazz were discussing as he grabbed the spoon, closed the drawer, and took both bowl and spoon over to the cereal box. Another shiver gripped him and he leaned against the counter, waiting for it to pass. The house was cold. Too cold. Stupid heater rules. He couldn't wait to get out into the warm sunshine.

Danny poured cereal into his bowl, spilling some on the counter. That was okay. He could clean it up after he had eaten. Breakfast always woke him up. Forgetting the milk, he took his bowl and spoon and turned towards the table. His parents stood in front of him, giving him the strangest looks. Jazz stood behind them, an expression of concern on her face.

"See what I mean," his sister declared. "He's sweating and his skin is grey."

"Danny, are you feeling okay?" his Dad asked, eyes narrowed, he watched his son. His most recent ghost invention dangled, forgotten, from one hand.

His mother reached over to Danny's face with her hand. Before she could touch him, Danny flinched back.

"I'm fine. I just need breakfast!" he snapped. He slipped around his mother, trying to reach the table. He could see his parents exchange worried looks out of the corner of his vision.

"Danny," his mom said slowly from behind him, "Maybe you should stay home from school today."

Control was suddenly gone. It wasn't anything his parents had said. It wasn't even that he was upset or aggravated. One moment he was fine, the next moment vertigo hit him, his hands turned intangible and his breakfast – bowl, cereal and spoon – went crashing down to the floor. Just as quickly, his hands became solid. He didn't see Jazz gasp in shock at the sight, her face draining of color and her eyes darting to the side to see if Mom and Dad were looking in his direction. He didn't even know his parents were still looking at each other and had not even noticed his slip. He couldn't care, even for a moment, that anyone might have seen the inadvertent display of his ghost powers.

The only thing he cared about was the sudden chill freezing his fingers numb and the load roaring which deafened him. Oblivious to his surroundings, unaware his sister was suddenly crying out "Danny!" and his parents were turning back towards him in shock, Danny collapsed to the floor on top of his breakfast.

The last thing he saw was darkness wrapping itself around him like a blanket.

-----

Tucker Foley knew something was wrong when neither of his friends showed up at their lockers at the start of the school day. The three of them always met at the lockers first thing to discuss their daily plans.

"Fenton's late," Dash Baxter, football star extraordinaire and high school bully growled. He checked his watch as he paced the halls, searching for Danny. "I've got a schedule to keep and he better be here in time for his appointed locker stuffing!" The buff, blonde jock glared at Tucker as if Tucker were somehow hiding Danny from him. Tucker ignored him, desperately hoping he wasn't about to become Dash's punching bag for the day, even more desperately worried about his two friends.

It wasn't unusual for Danny to be tardy first thing in the morning. There was always the possibility he had over-slept and missed the bus, or ran into a ghost on the way to school. It was, however, completely wrong for Sam to be late without notice. She always warned Tucker when she was planning on ditching first period so he could try and cover for her. If both of them were late, and the last Tucker had seen either of them, they had been together flying off towards Sam's house, then something was seriously wrong.

He shouldn't have taken off on his own. He should have helped Danny carry Sam back home instead of letting Danny fly off with her. He should have tried to do something about Danny's injuries instead of ignoring them and trusting Danny to say if he needed assistance.

"Watch where you're goin', Techno-Geek!" Kwan, another football jock, member of the A-List club and bully second only to Dash, yelped as Tucker walked blindly into the other boy. Kwan's books went flying, one landing heavily on Paulina's petite foot.

"OW!" she yelped. "My foot! You've bruised the flawless skin of my beautiful foot!"

Dash, Kwan and Paulina all glared at Tucker while everyone else backed away from the scene. Tucker didn't expect anyone to come to his assistance. He was a member of the loser squad, made up of Sam, Danny and himself. Without his friends around, Tucker was alone, defenseless and about to be pummeled. He didn't even bother to resist when the two football jocks picked him up and yanked him towards the nearest open locker.

"Guess what, Loser?" Dash grinned as he shoved Tucker into the narrow space. "Fentonelli fumbled the play. You're his substitute, right? Hut, hut, hike. Enjoy your day!"

"Ow," Tucker commented in obligatory protest.

The bullies ignored him. They slammed the door on him and walked away, laughing, with Paulina. Tucker waited patiently, until the sounds of their conversation had completely died down, before opening the locker from the insider and climbing out.

"Where ever you are, Danny, you owe me for this one." He straightened his beret and glasses, then picked up his books. There was still no sign of his friends in the nearly empty hallway. "On the other hand, if Sam's ankle is still bothering her, he could be giving her a lift to school. Yeah, that's it. Nothing is wrong. They're just late because Danny is giving Sam a ride and he overslept."

The explanation gave Tucker a little bit of comfort as he headed to study hall. He would wait patiently through first period and see if they showed up before freaking out over his best friends' absence.

-----

"Danny!"

Jazz couldn't help herself. She screamed when her younger brother collapsed. She had seen him drop the bowl. Except he hadn't dropped it, exactly. His hands had vanished and the bowl, having nothing to hold it up, fell. Fortunately, her parents hadn't seen Danny's inadvertent use of his ghost powers. She started around the table, intent on getting him out of the kitchen before her brother had another powers mishap, when his knees buckled and he fell after the bowl. She couldn't stop the cry of alarm which came to her lips. As soon as she yelled his name, Mom and Dad spun around to see their youngest lying unconscious on the floor.

That was the end of any attempt she could have made to help him hide his secret on this particular morning. Her father promptly scooped Danny up and carried him upstairs to his room. Mom followed, grabbing the Fenton thermometer and the Fenton anti-spectral first aid kit, while Jazz trailed a distant third.

_Oh, no. What are they going to do to him? They don't know he's half ghost! I have to stop them from finding out._

She charged up the stairs, only to find her way into Danny's room blocked by the her father's large girth.

"It's a ghost virus, Maddie. It has to be."

"I'm not disagreeing, Jack. I simply want to take his temperature first. Danny's skin feels like it's on fire."

"Dad, Mom, you can't…"

"Hold on to that thought, Jazzikins," her father interrupted her. "I need to go down to the lab and modify the Fenton Ghost Finder. If I can get it to look for microscopic ghost energy, we can use it to locate the virus and pull it out of Danny." He barreled out of the door and down the stairs.

Jazz took the opportunity to scoot into the room. "Mom, let me take care of Danny for the day. You and Dad are so busy with your inventions and stuff, that you shouldn't have to worry about this."

Mom raised an eyebrow as she removed the beeping thermometer from Danny's mouth. "Don't be ridiculous, Sweetie. It's a school day. And I don't mind taking time off of work to care for my children. I'd do the same if it were you, you know," she added.

Jazz blinked then smiled. Her parents could be off-the-wall obsessive about ghosts, completely ignoring both her and Danny for weeks at a time, but occasionally they surprised her with how much they truly did care. She reached over and hugged her mother around the shoulders. "I love you too, Mom."

Mom patted her hand then frowned down at the thermometer. "108? That can't be right." She jumped to her feet and shouted down the stairs, "Jack, you're right. This has got to be a ghost virus. Get the Fenton Ghost Finder working ASAP."

Jazz felt her heart trying to jump out of her chest.

Danny didn't want anyone in the family to know his secret. He worked very hard to hide his spectral pursuits. Respecting his wishes, proud of him for the all the times he had 'gone ghost' to save Amity Park from some truly horrific ghosts, Jazz had never told him about the sunny afternoon several months ago when she had seen him transform from human to ghost and fly off into the sky. He didn't need to know she knew. She did, however, feel it was her responsibility to cover for him when he was unable to.

"Mom!" she screeched. "You can't scan Danny for ghost viruses!"

Mom turned and eyed her. "Why not?"

"Because," she stuttered. "Because when he fills out his college application forms he'll have to put stuff like this down on the health form and no school will accept him with this sort of thing on his record!"

She wanted to sink through the floor as her brain caught up with her mouth and she realized what a lame thing she had just said.

"Jazz, please," her mother replied dryly. "I remember filling out college application forms and there was never anything of the sort on them. Now get your books and go to school. I'll write you a note to take in for Danny's absence."

She tried again. "Mom, it's just the flu. Just a normal, ordinary flu bug. Half the kids at school have the flu right now."

"With a 108 degree temperature?"

"Well, yeah," Jazz temporized.

Mom stood there, simply watching her daughter for a long moment before shaking her head. "You almost had me going there, Jazz, but I do know better. A temperature of 105, let alone anything higher, is abnormal in a case of an ordinary flu bug. Their parents would be sending them to the hospital if they were truly that sick. Unless—," her mother trailed off.

"Unless?" She knew as soon as she asked the question that she should not have given into the temptation.

"You don't think this ghost virus is going around the school, is it? Maybe your father and I should check into that as soon as we get our equipment calibrated correctly. If they really are that sick, the poor things will need immediately examination."

Jazz gulped, realizing the implications of her mother's statement. "No! I mean, I'm sure it's just the normal flu going around. You're probably right. I doubt anyone has a fever that high." She could hear herself babbling incoherently. So much for helping Danny keep his secret. If he was as bad at inventing excuses as she was, it was no wonder he got into trouble so much.

"Get your books, Jazz. I'll write the note."

"Yes, Mom." Defeated, Jazz slumped her shoulders, shuffling out of her brother's room and across the hallway to her own.

-----

First period came and went without any sign of Tucker's two best friends.

He would have called them on his PDA cell phone, except on his way to his second period class, Kwan snapped it out of his hands and threw it down the corridor to Dash. With Danny still absent, Dash had a hole in his bullying schedule. The two football players tossed the PDA back and forth down the hallway until the warning bell rang. Kwan finished the game by tossing the electronic device onto the water fountain, pressed the water button and then walking off.

"My baby! My precious baby!" Tucker recovered the PDA and tried to wipe the water off it. He didn't have time to dry it off completely. The bell rang again, this time to start class.

"Stupid jocks!" he cursed as he ran for his classroom. He lunged through the doorway and made it to his seat right before the teacher entered. The seats beside and ahead of him were conspicuously empty.

"Everyone turn to page two twenty four, please," the teacher announced.

Tucker opened his book, then returned his attention to his PDA. Even if he couldn't do anything right now about Sam and Danny, at least he could try to fix the damage done to his baby. He proceeded to ignore what was happening in class, focusing solely on the PDA, until halfway through class when the door opened.

Sam hobbled into the room on crutches, her backpack slung over one shoulder. Tucker's heart soared at the sight. _Safe. Sam is safe. Safe and sound and back at school._

"You are late, Ms. Manson," the teacher commented coldly.

Sam tossed a square of paper on the teacher's desk. "Doctor's note."

The teacher examined the paper and nodded. "Very well, take your seat."

Amid snide comments about 'gimps' and 'wimps', Sam hobbled over to her desk. Ignoring the insults, she placed her crutches on the floor and pulled out her book. "Hey, Tucker," she whispered.

"Sam, are you okay?" he replied just as softly.

"Oh, I'm fine."

He pointed down to the crutches.

"Sprained ankle," she explained. "My parents made me go to the doctor this morning. He told me to keep my weight off it for a while." She grinned, almost evilly. "I even have a note which gets me out of P.E. for the rest of the semester."

"What?" Tucker could feel his eyebrows rise. "Man, that is so unfair. I want a note to get me out of P.E. too."

Sam laughed. "So, get chased by a ghost cat and sprain your ankle."

"Ms. Manson, Mr. Foley, if you two have finished your discussion, would you mind rejoining the class?" The question was phrased as a command.

Tucker and Sam instantly straightened and looked over at the chalkboard. Snickers from their classmates surrounded them. The teacher glowered at them for a moment before resuming the lesson.

As Tucker picked up his pencil to take notes, he noticed Sam's confused glance at Danny's seat. It was still empty. Danny hadn't come into class with Sam and if she was at the doctor's office this morning, then she hadn't been with him. Tucker chewed on his lower lip.

_Danny, where are you?_

-----

"Where is Danny?"

Jazz winced at the anticipated question. She was cornered, her back against the locker, and it was nearly lunchtime. She had no place to hide from them even if she could slide around Sam's crutches on one side or Tucker on the other. Her brother's friends were both scared and angry.

_How much should I tell them? They know his secret, but they don't know that I know his secret._ "He's at home today."

"Home? Why?" Tucker demanded.

Randomly spinning the combination dial on her locker door to reset the lock gave her a moment to think. She could tell them most of this mornings events, she decided. Leaving out, of course, his little vanishing hands trick. "Danny is sick with the flu. Mom and Dad decided to keep him home from school."

Was Sam scowling over this? Jazz couldn't be sure. The girl was a goth. She was always scowling at something. The sixteen year old knew she would be adding gas to the fire, but these were Danny's best, and only, friends in the whole wide world. They needed to know. "He collapsed this morning during breakfast. He had a fever that was off the charts. Mom and Dad think he has a ghost bug of some sort."

"A ghost bug?" Sam asked in surprise. _Fake surprise,_ Jazz thought as she watched the two younger kids exchange significant looks. Those two knew something. She was tempted to ask what had happened last night. Even if she did, though, neither of them would answer. They kept Danny's secrets better than she did.

Jazz shrugged instead, playing her "I know nothing / I saw nothing" part as well as possible. "I think it's just the regular flu," she lied. "But you know my parents. As far as they're concerned, everything is ghost related."

"Yeah," Tucker replied slowly. "We've noticed that about them."

------

Danny's dreams were a sea of confusion. The cat ghosts figured prominently in them, as did Sam and Tucker. Sam was pinned down by one cat, her ankle too hurt for her to get away, and Tucker was running around in circles with the other cat chasing him. Danny wanted to go ghost, but his battle cry was stuck in his throat and wouldn't come out. Jazz stood in the distance, waving her arms like crazy as if she were trying to get his attention. He could barely hear her yelling his name. A rainbow colored freight train roared past him, its wheels leaving no trace on the mud which was sucking him down into the ground. He couldn't move, couldn't breath. Evil laughter echoed all around him.

His eyes opened to blurry sunlight streaming through his window, illuminating his room. He was late for school. He could tell from the angle of the sunlight. Weakly gasping, his lungs felt like they were on fire, Danny tried to sit up. Dad would ground him for life if he didn't get ready for school.

"Whoa. Easy, Danny." Mom pushed him back down on the bed, concern in her violet eyes. "You've got a fever. You should rest."

Fever? That couldn't be right. He was cold, freezing even, not hot. He shivered under his blankets. What was wrong with him?

He hadn't realized he had spoken the last out loud until his mother replied, "You have a ghost flu, Sweetie. Your dad is building something right now that will find that nasty little ghost virus and suck it right out of your system. In the meantime, you should stay in bed."

Oh, great. Just what he needed; his parents scanning him for ghostly influences. "Mom, couldn't it just be a regular flu? You know, like the _regular cold_ Tucker and I got last year. It doesn't have to be a ghost flu."

She smiled and patted his head. "Don't be silly, Danny. We're Fentons. We don't get infected by regular diseases." She leaned in and whispered confidentially, "I think it's a ghost bug that was sent here in revenge for us kicking so much ghost butt on a daily basis. Don't tell your father, though. I don't want him to worry." In her normal voice, his mom said, "You just rest. Your dad and I will take care of everything!"

Danny thumped his head back on his pillow. He needed to get out of this house, and now, before his parents found out he was half-ghost, and had been since his accident with the Fenton Ghost Portal over seven months ago. Another cold shiver seized him, shaking him from head to toe and making him lose his train of thought. When he finally stopped shuddering, he felt a warm cloth gently caressing his forehead. He looked up to see his mother carefully wiping sweat off his face, extreme worry evident in her eyes.

As soon as she noticed him watching her, though, she wiped the worry out of her expression and regarded him cheerfully. "Is there anything you need, Sweetie?"

"No," he moaned. "I don't need anything except to be left alone." Fat chance of that happening, if his dad was working on the Fenton Ghost Finder again.

She smiled again, gently kissing him on the forehead. "I think I'll head to the kitchen and whip up a batch of Ma Fenton's patented chicken noodle soup. I'll leave the door open. Yell if you need anything?"

Danny sighed and nodded. "Sure, Mom."

After she left, he sat up and instantly regretted the quick motion. Vertigo assaulted him and he fell back on his bed. His arms were covered with goose bumps from the chill he was feeling and he could see his breath steam in the air in front of him as he pulled the covers tightly around his neck. His body seized by another violent shudder, Danny closed his eyes to wait it out. By the time the seizure was over, he was asleep, trapped in his dreams again.

Sam and Tucker were in deadly danger. Jazz was telling Mom and Dad that Danny had homework to do and couldn't possibly be scanned for ghost viruses right now because it would interfere with his college application process. The mud was deeper this time, up to his waist. He couldn't move through the mire, even though he saw his worst enemies raining down devastation on the town of Amity Park. Ember sang in the park, the trees aflame with the blue fire that normally cascaded from her head. Skulker and Valerie Gray, a fourteen year old girl and ghost hunter Danny went to school with, hunted each other back and forth through the Amity Park zoo while Poindexter laughed and shoved kids into the monkey cages.

"See how it feels, Bullies?" the ghost nerd shouted at his victims.

Desiree, the ghost genie, was granting wishes to the delight of all the kids who attended Casper High and to the horror of their parents, who were running around the school gym in an attempt to get away from Walker's ghost police goons. Johnny Thirteen, his girlfriend Kitty and his shadow were painting the town red. Literally. They were dumping humongous buckets of red paint over the downtown landscape and cackling with joy. And in the midst of it all stood his worst enemy and the only other half-ghost, half-human hybrid that Danny knew about, Vlad Plasmius. Plasmius floated in mid-air, his cape snapping back behind him as if there were a strong breeze blowing around him. Plasmius's bright red eyes stared down at Danny, still stuck in the mud below, as the villain laughed triumphantly. The evil ghost lifted his blue hands, gesturing grandly at the town surroundings.

"You should have joined me when you had the chance, Daniel. We've conquered the world and you're going to miss our celebration party." Plasmius grinned, his fangs showing, and pointed to a corner lamppost where a familiar figure in a bright orange jumpsuit hung from his wrists. "By the way, your father is the guest of honor."

Danny opened his mouth to yell in denial, but couldn't get the word out. He was underwater suddenly, choking on his own visible breath. A rainbow colored freight train swam by, Sam and Tucker trapped in one of the cars, pounding at the windows to get out. "No!" the word, finally released, came out as a strangled croak instead of a scream.

"Shhhh. Easy, Danie…Danny. Easy, Danny. It's just a dream."

The familiar male voice came from the waking world. If he could just wake up, just open his eyes. Struggling against the mud felt a lot like struggling against the bed sheets. He felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around him and hold him against someone's chest. "Relax, Danny. I've got you. Everything will be fine," the soothing voice promised.

Pulling himself away from the dream, Danny Fenton opened his eyes to the sight of a pair of thin, orange and black clad arms circling his chest. His sight was blurry, but he was still able to recognize the material of his Dad's hazmat suit even if his father's arms looked a little smaller than usual. "Dad?" he croaked.

He heard an amused chuckle. It didn't sound like his father's laugh, but he couldn't summon the strength to turn his head. His dad rocked him gently back and forth, reaching up a black gloved hand and smoothing Danny's hair back. "Yes, Little Badger. I'm here. Go back to sleep now. I promise I won't let anything bad happen to you."

Something didn't quite make sense here. Danny fought for focus. "Little Badger? Masters." He gulped for oxygen. What was he saying? _Little Badger. Right._ _Vlad Masters, Plasmius's human half, called me that once. _ He tried to get the words out, wasn't even sure if he said them or just thought them. His own voice sounded like jumbled nonsense to his ears.

The arms around him tightened briefly. "Hush, Danny. You need to rest, Son. Don't worry about anything except getting yourself well."

The voice was wrong. All wrong. He tried to pull away from the person comforting him and vertigo assaulted his senses again. Orange and black streaked across his vision. "I…"

"Ssshhhh. Rest now, Danny. That's all you have to do right now. Forget about everything else and just rest."

Darkness closed in on him from the corners of his vision and Danny Fenton tumbled back into a sleep so deep even the horrendous dreams he had been having couldn't follow him.

----

Sure his young foe was sound asleep again, Vlad Masters, one of the richest men on the entire planet, lifted Daniel out of his arms and arranged the boy back on his own bed. He glared down at the ugly orange jumpsuit he wore. Orange was not his color. He much preferred black business suits, but the jumpsuit was essential to his plans. "Little Badger," he said to himself in disgust as a black circle appeared around his midriff, separated into two circles – one heading for his head and the other heading for his feet – and transformed him from his human form into his ghostly Vlad Plasmius form.

Now he wore a white suit with a red-lined cape and black gloves. His hair had gone from white with two grey streaks to black with two white streaks, his skin had turned blue and his blue eyes changed to bright red. "I'm impressed, Daniel. I had no idea you remembered that. Nor did I expect you to be capable of reasoning this well while under the influence of the cat's venom. I promise I won't make that mistake again."

Danny didn't respond. He was completely unconscious.

Plasmius sighed heavily. "I suppose if I really want this to work, I'm going to have to spend time spying on your idiot father. Get to know his habits as well as you do." Turning himself invisible and intangible, he sank through the floor on his way to the Fentons' basement lab. "And then, _Son_," he chuckled, "we will see how good your memory actually is."

------

"Ghosts!"

A loud crash resounded through the house, metal clanging loudly. Not awake enough to register the difference between falling pots and his alarm clock, Danny threw his arm out from under his covers, knocking over the family photo on his nightstand, and slammed his fingers on the off button. When the sound came a second time, he forced his eyes open and blearily focused on his clock. "2:05 p" it proudly proclaimed in neon green digital numbers.

Then his parents ran by his partially closed door, carrying the Fenton Bazooka and the Fenton Fisher. "Ghosts!" they cried again.

He shivered as the temperature suddenly dropped in his room. His breath hung as a small, visible mist in the air. "Not now," he moaned. He dragged himself out of his bed to find that he felt better than he had this morning. "I'm going ghost," he said softly, not wanting his parents to hear his battle cry. A white circle surrounded his midriff, separated into two circles, and they both moved about a foot apart, exposing a glimpse of black jumpsuit, before stopping and slamming back into each other at his midriff. The circle vanished, his clothes changed back to normal and Danny fell back on his rear. His head was pounding and the vertigo was back. Not as bad as before, but changing to his ghost form was definitely out of the question. He just didn't have enough strength back.

He did have enough strength to walk over to his door and peek out of it. He could barely make out the corner of the living room where he saw his mom standing, firing the bazooka. His dad's black gloved hand came into view as he cast the Fenton Fisher at something out of Danny's line of sight. The fishing line fell flat as if it had missed its target.

"Oh, poo," Maddie Fenton pouted.

"And stay out of our house, Ghost!" Jack Fenton's voice boomed.

Danny had to close his eyes briefly against another dizzy spell. His vision kept going all wonky for some reason. Even though he could barely hear his parents' discussion after the fight, he did hear his mother say, "I should go check on Danny. Make sure he's okay."

"And I'll go cleanup the mess in the lab," his father replied in depressed tones. "All that effort for nothing."

"Don't worry, Honey. We can rebuild it."

"But we have to save Danny from that ghost virus!"

His mother said something else that Danny didn't quite catch and then she was heading up the stairs. He scurried back to bed, throwing himself under the covers. Then he remembered the picture he had knocked down. He picked it up off the floor, grimaced when he saw cracks in the frame's glass, and placed it in front of his alarm clock, blocking the neon digits from his sight. He didn't know why he kept the thing. He absolutely hated that photo. It had been taken at his seventh birthday party, with Danny sitting miserably in the chair of honor, his sister making faces beside him, his father Jack grinning proudly, huge hands on Danny's tiny shoulders and his mother holding out the sheet cake for the camera to see. It had been designed in the shape of a ghost and the iced writing which was supposed to say "Happy Birthday, Danny" said instead "Hoppy day, Dan". Finger trails in the frosting showed someone had been snacking early and, from the frosting stains on his father's gloved fingers, it wasn't hard to figure out who had ruined the cake.

A knock on his door interrupted his thought process.

"Danny, Sweetie, how are you feeling?"

He rolled over to face her. "Hey, Mom." His voice sounded harsh, as if his throat were sore. "Better."

She came over and felt his forehead with the back of her ungloved hand. "Oh, good. It looks like your fever has gone down. You think you can eat something? You haven't had any food since yesterday."

He nodded. As she got up to leave, he stopped her with a question. "Mom, I heard you and Dad yelling. Did something happen?"

She smiled at him. "Oh, nothing major, Danny. A couple of giant bird ghosts got into the lab and started breaking things, including the Fenton Ghost Finder. We chased them off. I doubt those ghosts will ever haunt this house again."

Relief flooded him. The FGF was broken. His parents wouldn't be able to scan him and detect his ghost energy. Guilt promptly followed his relief. His parents had spent a lot of time creating their ghost hunting equipment. It was their life's work. They were probably devastated over the loss. "So, you won't be able to find the ghost virus," he ventured hesitantly.

His mother waved a hand dismissively in the air. He could tell she was forcing herself to be cheerful in his presence. "It's no big deal. Given that your fever is down so much, I'm beginning to think Jazz was right after all. This is probably just an ordinary flu virus instead of some ghost bug. Only time will tell. In the meantime, get ready for some Fenton soup."

She was lying. It was a big deal. He watched his mother leave, wishing on one hand that he could help clean up and rebuild the equipment, while wishing on the other one that it would stay broken long enough for him to get over the flu. Another chill hit him, mild compared to the earlier ones. He pulled the blankets up tightly around his neck and lay back down as the room swam momentarily before his eyes.

"Gah! I have got to get over this."

Danny took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and let the breath out slowly, trying to calm his shaking muscles. It seemed to take forever. Sleep beckoned as he relaxed and he allowed himself to drift in a semi-coconscious state.

For a while, things were quite and peaceful. He did have one dream which started with opening his eyes to a blurry vision of his room and seeing a wisp of chilled air come out of his mouth. A slight, short figure suddenly appeared, wearing the orange hazmat suit his father favored, reached down and fondly ruffled Danny's hair. The man was so familiar, yet Danny was completely unable to focus on details. It had to be his father. No one else would wear the orange and black jumpsuit. The problem was his father somehow had completely white hair now instead of black with wide white streaks. As his dream eyes closed, he saw his father pick up the picture from the nightstand. Then everything swirled black.

The next time the black cleared, Danny was a little more alert and realized the cacophony of sounds coming from downstairs were in fact a group of recognizable voices. He glanced at the alarm clock on his otherwise empty nightstand, three thirty it said, and realized Jazz was home from school. As steps pounded on the staircase, he noted the tense voices of Sam and Tucker making inane conversation with his sister.

He turned towards the door as a knock sounded, noting the glass of water and bowl of soup sitting on a t.v. tray next to his bed. "Come in."

Sam and Tucker, practically spilled across the entrance to his room. "Danny!" they cried simultaneously.

Jazz followed behind them at a more sedate pace. Concern vanished from her face when she saw him sit up. "Welcome back to the world of the conscious, Little Brother." She put her backpack down beside the tray as his two best friends plopped down on the end of his bed. "Your homework is in here. Let me know if you need help with it."

Danny groaned. "Gee, thanks, Jazz."

She smiled mischievously. "You're welcome. Come Christmas, don't say I never gave you anything." She winked and left his room, closing the door tightly behind her.

Tucker snickered. "Good one. I definitely have to remember that phrase."

Sam leaned her crutches against the foot of the bed. "What happened? Jazz said you collapsed this morning. Did it have anything to do with last night?"

Danny leaned back against his headboard. "I'm not really sure." He was still wearing his tee-shirt from this morning and showed them the exposed skin on his arms. There wasn't even a hint of the injuries he had sustained during the fight with the second ghost cat. "I remember those sores looked pretty bad last night. They actually had some sort of ecto-puss seeping out of them. I don't remember seeing them this morning, but I don't remember looking until now either. Maybe I had a bad reaction to the cat ghost acid. Or maybe I have the flu. Whichever it is, I'm feeling a lot better."

"You had me scared half to death, Man." Tucker shook his finger at Danny. "Don't ever do that again."

"Ditto," Sam put in. "I nearly freaked when Tucker told me you hadn't made it to school. And a freaked out goth is not a pretty sight."

Danny chuckled. "Well, at least you two aren't trapped underwater inside a rainbow colored freight train."

"Say what?" "Huh?" The other two teens said simultaneously.

"Weird dreams." He described the first and second dreams as best he could remember. His friends seemed bemused at the telling.

"Okay." Sam shifted, stretching out her leg to a more comfortable angle. "Remind me to avoid train stations at all costs."

Tucker shook his head. "Dude, I am so glad I am not you. I don't think I could stand having nightmares like those."

Danny frowned, the last image in the second dream coming back to him in a rush; his father hanging from a lamppost. He shivered and pulled the covers back up around his chest. "So, tell me everything that happened today."

"Everything?" Tucker asked slyly.

Hesitantly, Danny nodded.

"Well for starters, you owe me a new PDA and a locker stuffing."

Sam laughed when Danny covered his head with his arms. "Oh, no. What did Dash do?" he asked in trepidation.

-----

Sam and Tucker stayed with Danny for several hours. Most of their conversation revolved around the events of the day, anticipated movie openings, the latest video game consoles and a quick game of t.v. show quotes with the word pants inserted in place of various nouns and verbs. Throughout the visit, Danny could feel his strength slowly returning. Even though his head still felt muddled, his senses seemed to be coming back to him and he definitely felt warm again. When his stomach growled with hunger, quite loudly, sometime after seven p.m., his two friends howled with amusement.

"It's the beast from Grady's swamp!" Tucker made a cross with his fingers and leaned away from Danny.

"Oh, no!" Sam returned in mock dismay. "Whatever shall we do to escape?"

Danny responded by throwing his pillow at her. "Very funny." He glanced over at his now cold chicken noodle soup, which he hadn't touched all afternoon. "Ick. You guys want to rummage through the fridge, see what we can scrounge for dinner?"

"Can't, Danny. My folks have company tonight. I've got to eat there." Tucker frowned at the clock. "And I'm almost late. I should go."

Sam sighed and grabbed her crutches. "I hate to say it, but I need to leave too. My parents are probably going spastic wondering where I took off to."

Danny nodded and stood up. He grabbed the soup and the water. "Walk you downstairs?"

The trio headed out, the boys letting Sam take the lead. "Watch how she takes the stairs," Tucker chuckled.

"I heard that," she grumbled as she slid the crutches down the stairs, put her hand on the railing and hopped down, one stair at a time. When she reached the bottom, she had to twist herself sidewise, raising her injured leg in the air, so she could grab the crutches off the floor. The boys laughed.

"You should be a Chinese acrobat, Sam."

"Five million wanna-be comedians in the world and Danny's trying to be Bill Cosby," she retorted.

Danny saw Jazz peek her head out of her room as he reached the first floor. His sister waved at him then ducked back inside. _Does she always have to check up on me?_ he mentally groused.

Farewells between the friends were a bit shorter than usual. They exchanged a few last digs, with Sam and Tucker making Danny promise to call them if he wasn't going to be in school the next day. The evening temperatures had dropped enough all three of them could see a hint of their breath in the air as they stood in the doorway. When Sam realized Danny was shivering, she lightly hit Tucker in the shin with one of her crutches, nodding significantly in Danny's direction. Taking the hint, Tucker made one last jibe and said goodbye. Danny waited until his friends were halfway down the block before he went back inside the house and closed the front door.

He couldn't stop the shudders, though. As warm as the house felt, enough of a chill lingered in his bones, making it impossible for him to feel back up to one hundred percent. He carried the soup and water into the kitchen, dumping the water down the sink and putting the soup in the fridge. Wanting something more substantial than soup for dinner, he fixed himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a large glass of milk.

Danny ate at the kitchen table. He scarfed the sandwich down so fast, he almost bit the ends of his fingers. He quickly fixed himself a second sandwich, then a third, eating both and drinking two glasses of milk before his stomach stopped complaining.

He rinsed his plate and glass off, putting both in the dishwasher. Then he headed back upstairs to his room. He was tired again, but it wasn't the exhaustion of this morning or last night. This time, it was a pleasant, numbing, sort of fatigue. His breath misted before him as he walked, the florescent lighting in the house turning it into a mini-rainbow before him. Danny chuckled. _At least it's not a freight train,_ he thought.

-----

The teenage boy crawled into his bed for the night, completely oblivious to the invisible presence who had followed him downstairs, to the kitchen and back upstairs. The same presence who had been flitting in and out during the day to keep tabs on his soon-to-be son and protégé.

Vlad Plasmius flew out into the hallway just as Jazz opened her door, tip-toed to Daniel's room and peeked in on him. She stood at the threshold, a silent sentry holding vigil over her younger brother's welfare. It was several minutes before she closed the door to Daniel's room and returned to her own, leaving her own door cracked wide enough to keep an eye on her brother's room.

_Oh, caramel crunch!_ Plasmuis scowled as he hovered invisibly. This was an unexpected complication. He had been under the impression Daniel didn't get along with his sister very well.

Of course, he hadn't exactly spent much time considering Jasmine Fenton as anything but an extraneous piece in his chess set.

He walked through her door. Books were neatly stacked on every available surface. She had titles on anatomy, physchology, and various other sciences. Many of them were books written for the college reading level. In spite of himself, Plasmius was impressed. Obviously there was more to the girl than he had ever suspected. Unaware of his presence, she sat at her computer, working on what appeared to be a term paper. She flipped screens to a photo editing program, copied a diagram, flipped back to the word processing program and pasted the image into her document.

Plasmius looked over her room a little more carefully, noting the bulletin board with all her high school report cards posted to it. They listed nothing but straight A's. An intelligent young lady, and apparently not the type to simply stay out of the way while her sibling was sick. Vlad sank through the floor of Jazz's room, mulling over the new twist he had just been handed. He floated to the living room, resolidifying on the couch and grabbing Jack's embroidery hoop.

"Needlepoint," the ghost man muttered as he picked at a snarl of thread. "Of all the foolish hobbies in the world, he has to choose needlepoint. Why couldn't he have gotten into knitting? I can do knitting."

Annoyed, he tossed the hoop onto the coffee table. One problem at a time. He could always learn needlepoint later if he needed to. "There's no help for it," he decided. "I will simply have to remove Jasmine from the picture before she can become a hinderance to my plans."

A yell and a crash echoed up from the basement. Jack Fenton's voice. The poor man sounded upset. Vlad chuckled delightedly. "Time to spy on the idiot again."


	3. The Dream

_The Dream_ -

In his dreams, he was flying.

An odd, anesthetized type of fatigue was his close companion on the random, jagged flight in the sky above Amity Park. He knew the air whipping his bangs back over his head should be cold, but the dream-imposed barriers around him prevented him from actually experiencing the sensation. He twisted and turned, looped and dived without pattern or purpose to his movements. The only thing that mattered in this dream was the flight.

It kept the rainbow-colored freight train away.

He wasn't sure where that thought came from. His mind wasn't processing information very well. An image of a girl, with black hair wearing black clothing, briefly accompanied a new thought, _fugue state_, in his mind as he side-slipped between the rungs of a communications tower and climbed back into the sky. The barest awareness of a memory, her explaining the phrase to him, flashed across his mind, then disappeared, unable to compete with the sensation of "dream now" he was caught up in.

Fugue state. Somehow the words fit. He felt intensely aware of everything around him, even if his memory was completely inaccessible. The city lay stretched out beneath him; a velvet dark landscape mapped out by rows of glittering streetlamps. Dogs barked in the distance while the lonely moans of the wind buffeted overgrown tree branches against windows. A cat chased a rat into a nearby warehouse while a raccoon knocked over a trashcan in search of food. No people wandered around this late at night. Yet, he could still smell the side-by-side fumes of car exhaust and Nasty Burgers wafting through the air.

High above, a bare crescent of moon hovered, hidden among the stars which blanketed the night sky. Clouds lay scattered on the horizon, invisible to ordinary human eyes. He could see them, though, due to perfect ghost night vision. It was going to rain tomorrow, he somehow knew, late in the afternoon.

He soared above the city, looping and turning on a whim. He couldn't remember why he was there and truthfully didn't care that much. There were no people to bother him, no other ghosts to hunt and no ghost hunters to run from. He was free tonight. Free to do anything he wanted to do in this wonderful dream of his.

And all he wanted to do was fly.

"Daniel," a familiar, and frustrated, male voice reached his ears. "Son, stop being foolish and come down from there."

A wisp of chilled breath escaped his lips. _Another ghost?_ But when he turned to the voice, he saw only a human adult standing on a rooftop waving him down. _Why did he call me Daniel?_

The man seemed unhappy about something. Almost upset, in fact. Danny, _yes, I'm Danny Phantom,_ tried to understand the emotions on the man's face, _Do I know him,_ as he flew towards the rooftop. He stopped a few feet away, hovering. "What?"

"You shouldn't be doing this, Daniel, you…"

Danny started at the familiar nominative. Only one person had ever called him Daniel. _Who?_ This dream was getting stranger by the moment A part of him screamed _Fly! Be anywhere but here!_ Another part responded, _This is just a dream. Nothing can hurt you in a dream._ He looked around for the rainbow-colored freight train which kept intruding into his sleep.

It's absence was strangely conspicuous.

The man below had narrowed his eyes and cut himself off as soon Danny reacted. Now, one hand curling slowly into a fist, the man schooled his expression from anger to concern. He waited until Danny's wandering attention was fully back on him.

"Son, please," he coaxed in kinder, gentler tones. "You shouldn't be flying around the city like this while you're still ill. You should be resting at home in bed."

_Ill?_ Danny tried to focus past the blurry barrier of the dream. He vaguely remembered Mom mentioning something about a ghost bug. A heavy lethargy sapped at his strength. It was trying to weigh him down, bring him back to Earth, but he desperately tried to resist it. Flying was the key. If he could keep flying, then he didn't have to worry about the other dreams the rainbow-colored freight train would bring.

"I'm fine," the ghost boy whispered to himself, putting a hand to his head. "Nothing is wrong with me. I'm fine."

"This is not amusing, Danny. Come to me right now," the man commanded, his patience at an end. He lifted a black-gloved hand towards the hovering teen with an air of expectation.

Danny hesitated, looking the man over. For the first time, he actually acknowledging the man's appearance. The man was lean with broad shoulders, had white hair with twin grey streaks running up through it and was wearing an orange and black accented jumpsuit. The jumpsuit tugged at something in teen ghost's mind. Danny knew someone who wore that outfit; trusted the someone who wore that outfit all the time.

_Dad?_

He almost said the word, yet something held it back in his throat. Dull pain pulsed briefly in his head as he tried to tug at the memories just beyond his reach. Both doubt and certainty came on the heels of his question.

_Dad?_ he asked himself again. _Yes or no? The answer can't be both._

It wasn't just lethargy tugging at him. Sleep was sinking its claws into his mind, burrowing past the supernatural awareness he was trapped in and dragging him out of the dream. Pain throbbed in his head, keeping time with his heartbeat. The city lights around him began to fade.

His father's face blurred.

"Danny? Danny, what are you doing? Pay attention!"

In his dreams, he was falling.

Fast and hard, he fell, with no ground in sight. Danny Phantom shivered. He was caught in the undertow of oblivion, losing the battle to stay in his wonderful flying dream. One final thought percolated through his head as sleep won the fight.

It was a good thing he_ was_ only dreaming, because his father suddenly looked a lot like Vlad Masters in an orange hazmat suit.


	4. Chapter 3

_Day Two_ -

For once, Danny Fenton woke early. Not too early. Only thirty minutes before his alarm was set to go off, actually. Still, it was earlier than he had ever woken up before.

For a long moment, he lay there, staring at the neon green digital numbers of his clock. The fleeting image of Amity Park's nightscape came to him and was gone just as quickly. Did he dream about flying last night? He couldn't remember. At least it wasn't one of the weird dreams.

The temptation of sleep beckoned, but he resisted. Danny hated being sick. Additionally, he really didn't want to be stuck in the house if his father managed to fix the Fenton Finder. Getting out of the house was the only way to escape discovery and there was only one way to get out of the house in the middle of the week.

_I should get ready for school. Before I fall asleep again._

He sat up in bed, clutched the covers as a slight wave of vertigo assaulted him. His ears thudded in tempo with the headache building at the back of his skull. His eyesight blurred, mixing the colors of his room décor into some bizarre painter's palette of swirls. Blurriness vanished a moment later as the vertigo passed. He glanced at his clock and found hardly any time had passed during his dizzy spell, unlike his long bouts of unconsciousness the day before. _Well, that's one improvement at least,_ he mused.

Danny dragged himself out of bed and made his way to the bathroom without incident. The hallway floor was chilly against his bare feet, but not terribly cold. The headache receded somewhat, now a distant throb at the base of his neck, as he washed his face. The heat of the water flowing over his wrists definitely made him feel more like his old self. There was only thing he still had an issue with and it was a strange burnt-cinnamon aftertaste in the back of his throat. Even brushing his teeth couldn't get rid of it.

He grimaced in the mirror. The color had returned to his face, making the circles under his eyes seem less obvious than they had been yesterday. He then ran a wet comb through his hair to tame the tangled mass of bed-head into a less embarrassing style. When he finished using the bathroom, he opened to the door to see his sister standing patiently in the hall.

"Well, you're looking better this morning. Are you feeling better, too?"

Danny sighed, rubbing the spot on his neck where the headache was waiting as he stepped away from the door so she could use the bathroom. "Yeah. Much better," he replied tersely. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to her. He just didn't feel like letting her get into the mother hen act again.

Jazz smiled at him, with that strange, over protective, older-sister look in her eyes. "Good. I was really worried about you." She dropped an affectionate kiss on the top of his head as she passed him.

Danny continued rubbing the back of his neck, an answering smile forming on his lips, when he realized what she had done.

"'Scuse me, Jazz. I really need to get ready for school," he said, fleeing into his room as fast as possible. Her amused chuckle followed him until he slammed his bedroom door behind him. "Gah!" he complained to the empty room. "That was so gross!"

He spent a few minutes controlling the urge to gag as he pulled out some clean clothes and started changing. Just as Danny was pulling a tee shirt over his head, the alarm clock buzzed. The shrill sound seemed to slice right through his head, just like the chords Ember could rip out of her axe. He doubled over as if he had been guitar-punched, clutching his head. The headache twanged in synch with the noise.

The agony was too much to handle. He couldn't straighten up enough to walk over to his nightstand. With an aggrieved yelp, he thrust his right hand in the direction of the alarm clock, focused his anger and pain into the tips of his fingers and let loose with a green ecto-blast. The alarm clock flew apart at the seams, bits and pieces flying into the air and embedding themselves into the wall and floor.

The throbbing subsided again, but the headache remained, as Danny straightened up. A giant, black scorch mark decorated the top of his nightstand and the wall behind it.

"Danny?" Jazz's anxious voice came through his doorway as she frantically knocked. "Danny, are you okay?"

_Opps._ "Umm, I'm fine Jazz. Just…just installing the latest Doomed game plug-in. It's too big for the RAM to handle. My computer went fritzy." He finished pulling his clean shirt on, then ran over to pull clock parts out of the drywall. _Hope she buys it. _Thankfully, Tucker spoke technobabble as a second language and some of it had actually managed to rub off on Danny.

"Are you sure?" She didn't sound convinced. "You don't, maybe, need help with something?"

_HUH?_ Danny spared a quick glanced at his still closed door, surprised she hadn't tried to barge in on him already. "Um, yeah, Jazz. I'm sure. Just screaming at my computer. That's all I'm doing."

_Don't panic, Fenton. You can get this cleaned up before anyone notices. Maybe re-arrange the posters on the wall to cover the blast mark._ He continued piling the pieces of his clock on the nightstand. "You should finish getting ready for school. I'll meet you downstairs for breakfast."

Did he hear a resigned sigh come from the other side of the door? "Okay." Was that disappointment in her voice? What was her issue, anyway? "If you're sure…" Her voice trailed off.

He didn't reply as he bent over to clean up the parts which landed on the floor. After a long silence, he finally heard her move away from his room and back down the hallway.

When he had all the clock pieces in a pile, he grabbed his wastebasket and swept them into it. Then he pulled up the trash below the pieces to cover the mess from his sharp-eyed mother. He moved his posters accordingly, concentrating them over the damaged parts of the wall, and threw one of his pillows on the nightstand to cover the burn. It wouldn't work for long. He really needed to clean the top of stand before someone noticed, but Mom wouldn't move the pillow unless she was forced to come into his room and clean up after him.

It was the first time he actually had an incentive to clean his room.

Danny would have chuckled over the thought if a second one hadn't just hit him. "The photo," he breathed in shock. He looked around to see if there were signs of his birthday party picture lying around. Even bent down to check under the bed. No bits of frame, shards of glass or crisped edges of photographic paper lay anywhere.

Nothing.

His Fenton family photo was gone. Had he just vaporized the only family picture he could actually call his own?

Then he remembered his dream from the day before and panic was replaced with calm. _Oh. Right. I thought I dreamt of Dad. He must have taken it yesterday to replace the broken glass._ Relieved, Danny plopped down on his bed and pulled on his socks and shoes.

"Now all I need is a new alarm clock."

---------------------------------

Jazz wasn't even aware of why she was running to Danny's room until she was halfway down the hallway.

_Danny's hurt!_ was her first thought.

_That was an ecto-blast!_ was her second.

Grateful Mom and Dad were downstairs in the lab and couldn't hear the commotion, Jazz skidded to a halt and pounded frantically on her brother's door. It was the only way she could resist her impulse to open it and destroy any semblance of Danny's privacy. "Danny? Danny, are you okay?"

"Umm, I'm fine Jazz. Just…just installing the latest Doomed game plug-in. It's too big for the RAM to handle. My computer went fritzy."

_Fritzy?_ She would have laughed at his poor attempt at technobabble if she weren't so worried about him. " Are you sure?" Should she make the offer? Would he even take her up on it? "You don't, maybe, need help with something?" The Fenton Ghost Peeler was still in her room. She could grab it and be back in Danny's room within seconds if he said yes.

But letting her in seemed to be the last thing on Danny's mind. "Um, yeah, Jazz. I'm sure. Just screaming at my computer. That's all I'm doing."

Stress laced the tone of Danny's voice as he answered her concern. Mom and Dad wouldn't have heard it, but Jazz did. She had spent a lot of time paying attention to her brother's moods lately, and he was definitely not fine. "You should finish getting ready for school. I'll meet you downstairs for breakfast." He sounded panicked.

She sighed heavily. _Danny, you're a horrible liar._ That's not what she actually said to him, though.

"Okay," she replied instead. Waited a moment, her hand on the knob of his door, hoping he would ask her in. He didn't. "If you're sure..."

This time, he didn't even answer.

Jazz hated walking away from her little brother's door, but there wasn't much she could do short of barging in against his wishes and backing him into a metaphorical corner. She was not imagining this. Jazz had heard his yelp of pain, knew the sound of his ecto-blast from having seen Danny Phantom use that power so often. Which meant he was either fighting a ghost or his powers had gone out of control like they had yesterday morning.

Whatever happened in Danny's room, it probably not a ghost. The Fenton Ghost Alert hadn't gone off or Mom and Dad would have run right upstairs, plowing through Danny's door without even bothering to open it first. So, it had to be a powers malfunction. _He must still be sick. Really, really sick._

She wanted to help him. She couldn't, however, until he told her he was half-ghost. And she would not force him to share that secret unless things completely spiraled out of control.

_Oh, Danny_, she thought regretfully as she headed back to the bathroom. _I wish you would let me back into your life._

"YES!" came the shouted voice of Jack Fenton from the direction of the basement lab. "Victory is mine!"

----------------------------------

Danny sighed as he stepped into the first floor living area. _At least someone's having a good morning._ His father's cheer could have meant anything from "I beat a ghost" to "I fixed this Fenton Ghost fill-in-the-blank" to "My Jack Fenton action figure totally toasted this generic ghost action figure", so Danny pretty much ignored it. He was used to sounds like that coming from the downstairs lab.

Throwing his backpack full of forgotten homework against the coffee table, he was heading towards the kitchen when a wisp of chilled breath escaped from between his lips. Sudden apprehension stopped him in his tracks. _Was that my ghost sense?_ He was chilly, yes, but not cold like yesterday. It had to be his ghost sense.

Danny carefully looked around the room, turning towards the front door then glancing at the kitchen through the open window in the wall between both rooms. He turned back to the second floor stairs, and, when he saw nothing, turned to the hallway which lead towards the basement lab. Still nothing.

So where was the ghost?

He felt like he was being watched. No. Not felt. Knew. He knew he was being watched with a certainty which went bone deep. Jazz was eating in the kitchen, her back to the living room. Mom and Dad both seemed to be in the lab; their voices were echoing up the stairwell as they talked. So, taking a chance, he silently changed from Danny Fenton into Danny Phantom, not speaking his battle cry for fear someone would hear it.

The only thing which might betray him was the flash of light which accompanied his transformation. Fortunately, Jazz seemed not to notice anything. She had her nose buried in a book as she ate.

Danny went invisible, intangible and jumped through the ceiling to the uppermost floor of the building. He did a quick sweep from top down, even risked peeking around the edge of the door leading to the lab. His mom, in full view, leaned against one of the tables talking about protons and electro-magnetic fields in an animated voice. Danny could really only see one of his dad's feet, propped up against the table supports, and his dad's arm and hand as the older Fenton reached for some parts on the table. He waited for his ghost sense to go off again, refusing to fully enter the lab in case his parents had the lab's local area ghost alarm activated. After a few minutes of waiting, he retreated up the stairs, back into the living room, and transformed back into his Fenton half.

Nothing. No ghosts anywhere.

So why did his ghost sense go off? The living room thermostat read sixty-seven degrees. Not warm, but not cold enough for his breath to be puffing out like that. Experimentally, Danny pursed his lips and blew out another breath. Nothing. No wisp, no steam, and no ghost sense going off.

Could the ghost have left before he had a chance to spot it? He mulled over the possibilities as he staggered tiredly into the kitchen. Something strange was definitely going on.

_Please let it be something that can wait a couple of days. At least until I'm over this stupid flu bug. Using my ghost powers hasn't drained me this badly since I originally got them and first fought the Lunch Lady ghost._

Jazz peered over her book as he stepped around her and grabbed a bowl for his cereal. "Danny?" she ventured hesitantly.

He sighed dramatically. As if his head didn't hurt enough this morning, Jazz had to add to his problems. Couldn't she just let it go? "What, Jazz?"

"Are you _sure_ you're feeling okay this morning?"

He dumped Frosted Chocolate Bombs into the bowl, followed by some milk, grabbed a spoon and took his breakfast to the table before he finally snapped, "Just _fine_, Jazz." Sisters could be so annoying! Maybe he could free Desiree from the Ghost Zone just to wish Jazz away to someplace unpleasant. Or at least someplace far from him.

Now there was a thought! It even almost made his headache go away.

Danny found himself grinning over his meal until he remembered that wishes granted by Desiree never turned out the way the wishee wanted. If he wished Jazz away, she might end up on the moon or something, and he'd never see her again. He didn't want to not see her again. He just wanted her to give him a little space.

Almost as if she could hear his thoughts, Jazz ducked her face back behind her book. "Sorry. It's… Well, you were really sick yesterday and I'm not sure you should be trying to go back to school so soon." Her soft voice actually sounded concerned.

If there was one thing Danny truly hated when dealing with his sister, it was the guilt factor.

It wasn't her fault. She never actually tried to make him feel guilty for anything. In fact, Jazz acted the exact opposite of how most sisters were supposed to act. She was understanding, sympathetic, kind and incredibly generous. Every time he snapped at her, for whatever reason, she would simply accept the snap, take no offense at it and even apologize to him as if she actually was at fault.

And there was the problem. Jazz would apologize to him for something that wasn't her fault, _and mean it_. So, of course, he would end up feeling horrible for being nasty to her. Just like now. He dropped his spoon in the bowl. _This is so not fair!_

Fair or not, he had to apologize. Otherwise the guilt would hang over his head all day. Before he could form the words, an ominous shadow darkened the kitchen doorway.

"Danny Fenton!" his mother thundered. Hands on her hips, eyes glaring out from behind her hazmat goggles, she was in full "angry mom" mode. "What are you doing out of bed?"

Danny swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, as fear – a fear no ghost, not even Vlad Plasmius, could ever inspire in him – raced down his spine.

And his morning only went downhill from there.

------------------------------------------

Vlad Plasmius was not a happy half-ghost.

Last night had been a near disaster. Just as things were picking up, just as Vlad had corrected his minor mistakes and was prepared to fully execute his grand scheme, the predictable pawn that was his young nemesis did something completely unexpected.

Daniel had gone sleep-flying.

Oh, the boy had been awake, in a manner of speaking. But it had been obvious, at least from Plasmius's point of view, that Daniel _thought_ he was sleeping. The boy certainly hadn't been terribly aware of anything going on around him, at any rate, and had nearly hurt himself a number of times during his random flight. This meant that Plasmius had spent several very unproductive hours chasing his young foe half-way across Amity Park in the dark hours of the night, trying to protect the boy.

Vlad Plasmius had spent his night protecting Danny Phantom.

He growled to himself as he flew away from Casper High, back towards the Fenton Works, the name of the Fenton family domicile, and considered what had happened. It was a horrible twist of events he could never have foreseen. Worse, he had been forced to reveal himself in an attempt to get the boy back home and in bed before anyone had found Danny missing.

Fortunately, Danny had been completely out of it and didn't even seem to recognize Vlad at all. Unfortunately, just as Plasmius seemed to be making progress, Daniel had passed out at three hundred feet about street level, transforming back into Danny Fenton and falling to the ground like a rock.

Plasmius should have let Daniel fall.

It would serve the boy right for interfering in Vlad's attempts to regain the affections of his one true love, Maddie Fenton; beautiful, intelligent, incredible Maddie, who had been stolen from Vlad in college by that bumbling, thick-headed idiot, Jack Fenton. He almost did let Daniel fall. It certainly would have been the end of the boy's interfering, meddling ways.

After a moment of consideration, of watching Danny Fenton plummet towards the hard, unforgiving Earth, Vlad had realized the death of his enemy would cause a number of problems.

For one, it would ruin a perfectly good plan.

Moral differences aside, the boy could be such a self-righteous little brat sometimes, Vlad actually liked Daniel. The boy had the same abilities as he did, the same quick temper and, once properly trained, would have the same outlook on life. Given the choice, Vlad preferred to have Danny at his side instead of six feet under.

Another problem was the thrill of battle.

Until now, Plasmius simply hadn't realized how much he enjoyed having a rival. Daniel was too young yet to be Plasmius's true equal, but truthfully, he was the sole sentient being, ghost or human, who had ever come close to being a real challenge for Vlad. In the decades since he had gotten his own ghost powers, Vlad had become rich and powerful, only ever denied two things: Maddie and ownership of the Green Bay Packers. His life as Vlad Masters had become quite stagnant and boring before he ran into Danny "Phantom" Fenton. And now that he had someone to entertain him, Plasmius suddenly didn't want Danny to die in a mere accident.

At the very least, the boy should go out with a fight.

Lastly, and most importantly, shared grief at their son's sudden and unexplainable death might actually bind Maddie closer to Jack.

Since this last possibility was completely unacceptable, Vlad had changed into his Plasmius form, caught Daniel a mere fifty feet above the concrete pavement and returned the boy, almost unharmed, to his bed. Once he was sure Daniel was solidly asleep, Vlad left the Fenton Works to tie up a few loose ends. The pieces weren't quite in their proper places on the board. He did, however, finally feel like he was making progress.

Eliminating Daniel's support structure was the key. Without family or friends to protect him, Danny would be vulnerable, susceptible and easily manipulated. The boy wouldn't know what hit him and by the time anyone else figured it out, Danny Phantom would belong to Vlad Plasmius.

Then, phase two could begin. With Daniel finally on his side and no longer interfering, Vlad would easily be able to woo Maddie away from the stupid man she had married. A wife and an heir – _Instant family. No fuss, no muss._ – would belong to Vlad Masters in exchange for a little creative effort.

After that, the only thing he would really be missing from his life were the Packers.

The morning sun glinted sharply off the satellite dishes, neon signs, and assorted scientific paraphernalia bushing out from the roof of the Fenton Works. The three story building was a horrible affront to Plasmius's sense of aesthetics. However, it did make the building easy to spot from the air.

Staying invisible, Vlad landed on the porch, turned himself intangible and walked through the front door of the Fenton residence just as an exhausted Daniel thumped down the stairs with his backpack. Vlad froze as the boy's ghost sense went off, wondering if Danny would recognize his ghost sense today or ignore it like yesterday. He rather hoped it was the later. He was late for his morning "spy on Jack" session.

Luck hadn't been with him last night and apparently it wasn't with him this morning. After dumping his backpack next to the coffee table, Danny finally woke up to the fact that his ghost sense was going off.

_Blueberry Bundt Cake!_

Plasmius practically rocketed out through the front wall of the Fenton Work's and across the street before Daniel could turn around.

"Oh, Peanut Brittle!" Vlad cursed a second time as he hovered invisibly a good twenty-five feet away from the Fentons' place. He could still see through the un-curtained front window into the living room despite the glare of the early morning sun. Unlike full humans, his eyes weren't bothered by the splash of sunlight which sparkled brightly enough to hide Daniel's transformation from any casual passerby.

Vlad watched as the boy "went ghost" to search out for the source of his sudden anxiety. The older ghost wasn't worried about being caught out here. Daniel's ghost sense wasn't strong enough go off from this distance. It required immediate proximity to activate and it was doubtful Vlad's young foe would leave his home and search outside for the intruder. Yet, to be on the safe side, Plasmius rose to the rooftop of the house across the way and positioned himself where he could continue watching Danny through the Fentons' front window and make a quick getaway if the boy had actually seen and recognized him.

There was a lesson to be learned here. The boy was recovering from the cat venom much more quickly than expected and it was Vlad's own over-confidence which had yet again come close to ruining an otherwise perfectly brilliant scheme.

"So, now vhat?" asked a giant, green, ghost vulture wearing a Shriner's cap as it landed on the rooftop beside Vlad. Two other ghostly vultures made similar landings and waited behind their leader in silence. "We're just gonna sit here doing nothing while the kid recovers?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Plasmius snapped at his servant. "Events are going exactly as planned." It was a little stretch of the truth, but the vultures wouldn't know the difference.

Danny returned to the living room, changing back from Phantom to Fenton. He did still seem out of it, he practically stumbled into the kitchen, but not nearly enough so for Plasmius to carry out the rest of the plan.

Vlad frowned for a moment, considering his options. Making a decision, he pulled out a plastic container from one of his pockets. "Tell my ghost pilot to return to Wisconsin and fetch the cats. Then I want you three to go to Casper High and have a little fun. Don't hurt Jasmine. Just cause some chaos and when the Idiot shows up," Plasmius practically spit out his nickname for Jack Fenton, "lead him around town on a little wild goose chase. I want him out of the house for most of the day. Understood?"

The vulture stretched its wings and nodded. "Have the pilot fetch the cats. Play tag with the giant blimp. Don't hurt the girl. We got it."

As the trio of giant birds took off from the rooftop, one of the other two vultures snorted, "We're going on three thousand years old and now we're gonna deliberately play tag with a ghost hunter. Can our afterlives possibly be any more humiliating?"

"Could be worse," commented the third vulture. "We could have been sent to fetch the cats."

"Oy! Don't even suggest such a thing!" the first vulture said before the birds were too far away for Vlad to hear the rest of their complaining.

Vlad Plasmius floated back towards the Fenton Works to hear the sound of Maddie's voice, her sweet, melodious, incredible – and very angry? – voice, dressing down her son for trying to go back to school.

Excellent. She had just solved one of Plasmius's problems for him.

The boy needed to be contained for success to be accomplished within Vlad's self-assigned window of opportunity. Additionally, while at least one parent was at home, there would be no Fenton to Phantom and Phantom to Fenton for Daniel, unless he wanted to risk them discovering he was half ghost.

_Fenton to Phantom._ Plasmius snickered at the word play. _Jack Fenton's own son is making pointed jabs at his father's ignorance and the Idiot is so blind, he doesn't know there's a joke there, let alone a punch line. Daniel truly has the wit to be superb in my line of work. He just needs the right incentives._

Laughing softly, Plasmius carefully sprinkled glowing green fragments of plant material around the front of the building, concentrating a pile on the front stoop. As soon as the fragments hit the concrete, they vanished from sight. "Invisible ghost catnip is such a wonderful invention," he gloated, putting the container away.

It was time to play with his cats.

----------------------------------------

"— stay in bed. Mom was so mad she even threatened to use restraining straps if I tried to get up again."

Tucker shook his head, his beret brushing the edge of Sam's face as she leaned over her friend's shoulder to peer at his PDA screen. As promised, Danny had called to let them know he wasn't going to make it. "Dude, that bites," Tucker returned.

Sam leaned back a moment against the lockers behind her, take her weight off the crutches. She wasn't sure which was worse; putting weight on her sprained ankle or having to use these crutches. Her hands and armpits were sore a mere day after using them and it annoyed the heck out of her. Now, she understood why other people would wrap towels around the tops and handles, even though it looked ridiculous. So, last night she had taken the opportunity to spray paint the beige wood black and pad the handles and tops with the darkest, softest material she could find. Unfortunately for her, Tucker had found some blood red fingernail polish this morning and had painted "Don't mess with me" on the thin sides while Sam was icing her ankle in the cafeteria.

Tucker was only trying to be helpful. It was his way trying to protect her from possible crutch-stealing bullies. She didn't have the heart to tell him it was completely ruining her goth image. _Blood red fingernail polish in the hands of a techno-geek._ She sighed. Some questions should never be asked. The answers were simply too terrifying to ponder.

"No kidding." Danny sounded miserable. "There's nothing on t.v., nobody's going to be playing Doomed during school hours and the only reading material I have is all that homework Jazz brought home last night. What did I do to deserve this?"

"Well, at least you're feeling better," Sam said, hoping the PDA would pick up her voice.

There was brief hesitation. "I so need to get out of this house. Being cooped up in here with my parents is driving me nuts."

Sam straightened up, peering over Tucker's shoulder again. Both her and Tucker stared at the screen as they instantly processed that he didn't, in fact, say he was feeling better like he normally should have.

"Danny?" "Dude, you _are_ feeling better. Right?" they asked simultaneously.

"Tucker! Sam!"

Sam looked up to see Jazz, Danny's sister, waving as she came down the school hallway. Sam waved back in acknowledgement, hobbling around Tucker while Tucker tried to prod Danny into sharing what was wrong.

Jazz raised an eyebrow as she overheard one of Tucker's comments, then shook her head, turning towards Sam. "Sam, Danny is…"

"We know." Sam pointed at the PDA. "Tucker's talking to him right now."

"Oh." Jazz glanced at Tucker, who gave her a brief nod as he said his good-byes to Danny. "Okay. Well, I should probably get to class now."

"Actually, Ms. Fenton," came a calm, older male voice from behind. "You should be talking to me right now."

The three teenagers turned and came face to face with Mr. Lancer. The chubby, out-of-shape English teacher was wearing his serious intimidation face.

And he was staring at Jazz.

Jazz blinked, her face a mask of confusion. Sam and Tucker instantly stepped, or in Sam's case, hopped, back in fear.

Jazz was never in trouble with the faculty. She held the highest grade point average in the entire school, always did her homework – including extra credit projects that she didn't actually need to do to improve her grades –, was one of the most polite and up-beat students in Casper High, and she never, ever parked in the faculty parking lot like other students with driver's licenses.

In short, if the teachers at Casper had a favorite student who could do no wrong, it was Jazz Fenton. Mr. Lancer never tried to intimidate her. Until today. Did this mean Ms. Perfect wasn't so perfect after all?

"Mr. Lancer?" The older teen ventured, almost timidly. "Is there a problem?"

"Problem? Well, Jasmine," he replied in his formal teacher's voice instead of the softer "I'm not a teacher, I can be your friend" tones he usually used with her. "It depends on how you define the word 'problem'."

The teacher paused significantly, then pulled a crisp #10 envelope from his shirt pocket and waved it at her. "You could have told me, you know. Warned me this was going to happen."

Tucker and Sam exchanged puzzled glances. Lancer was acting even more weird than he usually did. Poor Jazz gaped up at him, her mouth doing a great imitation of a fish out of water, while Lancer tapped his fingers against the envelope in question.

"I... I don't... Is this about Danny? ...He's, um, sick today..."

"This is about you, Jasmine, not your brother." Lancer smirked, flicking the already unsealed flap of the envelope and pulled out a thick sheaf of tri-folded paper. He handed it to her.

"Explain this to me, Jasmine," he started in teacher mode. "Explain why you didn't share this wonderful, incredible, fantastic news with any of the faculty!"

The loud, sharp and very girly squeal of joy which came out of Lancer at the end of his last statement reverberated through the hallways, cracked one of the windows close to the three teenagers and instantly wilted the plants framing the door of the teacher's lounge. Students everywhere froze in terror, searching for the source of the ghastly sound.

Sam and Tucker instantly jumped as if electrocuted. Sam wasn't terribly religious, but she found herself making signs to ward off the "evil that had become Lancer" at the same time Tucker dropped his PDA. If there were anything that could possibly be scarier to Sam than a ghost, or a pink paisley dress, it was Lancer squealing in an incredibly high pitched falsetto.

"Tell me I didn't just hear that," she whispered to her best friend.

Tucker shuddered in horror as he cradled his PDA close to his chest. "I think Lancer's voice just broke my baby's screen. Poor baby. I'll get you fixed right after school," he cooed down to the electronic device.

Jazz scanned the letter in her hands, then went pale. For a long moment, she looked like she couldn't breath. Then she gasped, "Students for America?"

Sam and Tucker jumped a second time as Jazz suddenly squealed just as loudly as Lancer had.

Instantly, the busy hallway emptied as students tried to flee as far away as possible from Lancer and Jazz. Teenagers stumbled over each other to escape whatever contagion it was which had been unleashed today in the halls of Casper High.

Dash and Kwan even dropped the geek they were about to stuff in a locker before they too ran from possible impending doom.

"Yes. YES! Victory is mine!" Jazz shouted, thrusting the letter in the air and apparently not realizing how like her father she sounded. She then hugged the letter to her chest and looked up at Lancer with shining eyes. "How? When?"

Lancer grinned down at his favorite student in all of Casper High, his face a mask of giddy excitement. "The principal found it in this morning's un-opened mail. Apparently someone has become unable to attend and you were first on the alternates list."

"Wait a second," Tucker interrupted. "What are the Students for America?"

"The Students for America, Mr. Foley, is a foundation which chooses promising high school students from all over the United States to spend several weeks in Washington, D.C. and learn how this great country of ours is actually run. You have to pass an extremely complicated application process, including writing a ten page essay, to even be considered. And since only fourteen teenagers a year are chosen from the thousands who actually apply, this is a very high honor. This year, we finally have someone from Casper High on the list."

"Um, repeat please?" Sam glanced at Tucker, who shrugged his shoulders in confusion. "Who needs to go to D.C. to learn about running the country when government class is a required course for juniors?"

Lancer bestowed one of his patented "try to keep up with me" glares upon her. "Samantha, this is hardly the equivalent of government class. The students chosen for this program intern with real Senators and Congressmen. This isn't about book learning. It's about participating in the day to day processes of creating bills, making laws and influencing the future of the United States of America!" By the end of his passionate, little speech, Lancer had pulled himself up straight, putting his right hand across his heart.

_And the only thing missing,_ Sam thought, _is an American Flag waving in the wind behind him so he can look even more ridiculous._

Tucker tried to take another step back and banged into the lockers behind him. "Oooookay. This is weird. And this is a good thing, why?" he asked Sam.

"Because spending public tax dollars to send students to D.C. so they can watch a group of old men argue about the country's deficit is more productive than actually doing anything about the problem." Sam returned sardonically. She really hated it when teachers called her Samantha. "Maybe Jazz will get to sell five hundred dollar coffee makers to the Air Force. Or better yet, help pass laws which open up our national parks to strip mining and oil drilling."

Tucker blinked at her. "Huh?"

Lancer broke his pose and glared even more harshly at Sam. Before he could admonish the goth girl, Jazz, completely oblivious to the exchange and still bouncing on her toes, sang out, "I get to go to D.C. I get to meet the President. I get to meet all sorts of important people! Oh, I can't wait to tell Mom and Dad!" Excitement was written all over her face

Lancer cleared his throat, his joy at Jazz's accomplishment somewhat diminished. "There is a minor problem."

Jazz stopped bouncing, looked down at the letter, than back up at Mr. Lancer. "What?"

"The letter is a little late. If you want to go on this trip, you have to be at the airport early this evening."

Sam snorted. "At that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the United States Postal Service is going bankrupt. They couldn't get the mail delivered on time if they were handing it to themselves!"

Tucker couldn't help it. He fell back against the lockers, laughing so hard tears were running down his face, only restraining himself when he realized both Lancer and Jazz were glaring at him. "What?"

Disappointment over-wrote the excitement on Jazz's face as she re-read the letter. Sam could almost hear the older girl's thoughts. _An opportunity of a lifetime to get away from the ghost hunting insanity of her family, and it's all screwed up by a late letter._ The goth girl almost felt sorry for Danny's sister.

"Jasmine?" Lancer asked in his "I understand your pain, young one" voice, "If you want to go, I could call your parents. Convince them what a great honor it is for you to be chosen for this program."

If she dared, Sam would have shuddered in revulsion at Lancer's poor attempts at being the understanding, friendly adult. It was sickening to watch a grown man try to adopt the body language of an age group he hadn't been a member of for, oh, centuries. At least he wasn't using out-of-date slang to "connect with the children" for this particular conversation. That really would have terrified Sam.

Jazz actually seemed to buy into the whole thing, though. She clutched the letter tightly, eyes shining again. "Would you please, Mr. Lancer? It would mean the world to me."

Lancer smiled, patting her on the shoulder. "Of course I would. Anything for my favorite student." He turned back towards his office, winking at her over his shoulder as he walked away.

"Yikes," Tucker commented to Sam. "That was so incredibly scary."

Sam nodded. "No kidding. How can we sure he isn't some evil being from another dimension here to brainwash us into becoming minions in his army of doom?"

"It's not hard." Tucker adjusted his glasses, going into lecture mode. "Evil dimensional beings usually carry really wicked armor and techno-gear, have henchmen who bungle the evil overlord plans and are only around for the amount of time it takes for the subplot to get going. Plus, they are always easily defeated by the typical teen-age protagonists. Lancer's got to be human. He's been around Casper High forever, he has no henchmen, unless you count Dash who's really too dumb to be a evil henchman, no student I've ever met has defeated Lancer in glorious battle and his lectures are more of the 'bore you to death' variety than they are of the 'brainwash you into following me' kind."

"Students for America. This is so cool!" Jazz was still bouncing. A true Fenton to the last, she was so wrapped up in her own obsession, she still wasn't aware Sam and Tucker had gone completely off topic with their own conversation.

"Congratulations, Jazz," Sam said in her usual dry tones, trying to be happy for the older girl, but totally unable to think of why anyone would want to spend time with politicians. There were much more important, and fun, things a person could do with her time.

"Thanks, Sam. I can't believe this is actually happening to me!"

"So," Tucker asked, his own morbid curiosity out-weighing his common sense, in Sam's opinion that was. "What was it about?"

"What was what about?"

"The essay. You know, the thing you had to write to get into this program in the first place. What was it about?"

Jazz stopped bouncing and cocked her head to the side for a long moment, ignoring the warning bell as it rang for class. "Actually, I didn't write an essay. I haven't even applied to the program. I was considering it for next year, I've got the application sitting on my desk at home, but I hadn't made up my mind yet."

Tucker and Sam blinked, exchanging confused looks again. "Huh?"

Sam, frowning at the older girl, prodded, "Then how did you get into it?"

Jazz examined the letter again, grinning wildly. "I don't know. Who cares? I get to go to Washington! If my parents agree, that is." She spun on her toes and practically skipped towards class, leaving the bewildered pair behind her as she shouted to the hallways one final time, "YES!"

Tucker sighed, slamming his locker door shut. "Man, why is it Danny and his sister get all the luck. I would love to get something cool like that."

Sam tried not to choke on the images of Tucker running amok in D.C. which instantly came to her mind. Instead, she razzed him. "Since when would you want to actual do any actual work during your free time? Because that's what interning is, you know. Work."

"Since never if it has to do with politicians," Tucker declared as he and Sam made their way to class. "But surely Sports Illustrated needs intern photographers for its swimsuit edition. That's hardly work. Truth be told, though, I'd rather be the sunscreen guy."

Sam knew better than to ask. She knew Tucker too well to have any doubts as to what he meant. Still, the words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. "The sunscreen guy?"

"Yeah, you know. The guy who rubs sunscreen and oil on all those models so they look all shiny and sparkly for the pictures." He waggled his eyebrows under his glasses and looked like he was about to drool. "If there were a contest for that job, I would so be there."

"Tucker!"

---------------------------


	5. Chapter 4

_Author Notes: To answer a question asked in a review:_

_Weal – A ridge raised on the flesh by a stroke of a rod or whip (Oxford Dictionary of Current English). See also Welt (Miriam Webster Online Dictionary)_

_Welt - A ridge or lump raised on the body usually by a blow. _

_I envisioned Danny's weals to be lumpish, more circular in nature, due to them being caused by droplets of acidic cat saliva. Besides, the word "weal" is just so much more fun to say then "welt". ) Does that help anyone visualize the damage in Chapter 1? Let me know if you guys have any more questions, terminology or otherwise._

_FYI: It's a short chapter. Sorry about that, but I've been busy cranking out material for an original piece of mine. Deadlines are such a wonderful/horrible thing. ) I should be able to get another, much longer, chapter or two of DP out before the end of the year. _

_Catadmin_

-----

"Oh, poo!" exclaimed Maddie in a delicate soprano voice which could make an angel's voice sound gravely and harsh by comparison. She pouted, rosebud lips pursed prettily and bright blue eyes narrowed in concentration. There wasn't an actress or model in the world who could pout like Maddie Fenton and still be attractive. There weren't even any scowl lines on her face.

Vlad Plasmius smiled broadly as he invisibly leaned over to the side, propping his right elbow against a tabletop and resting his chin in the palm of his right hand while he continued to watch her.

The currents of the basement lab's air conditioner caught the ends of Maddie's bright red hair, tugging at them playfully. Her head was canted to the side, the tip of her tongue peeking out between her lips as she concentrated on the circuitry of Fenton Weasel. Dropping her soldering iron, she grabbed her soda and sipped gracefully before putting the soda back down. Her perfume, a mild jasmine scent, drifted towards Vlad as she moved. Vlad took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He didn't dare sigh. It would ruin the moment. Though he did find himself wishing he had remembered to bring a camera.

"Jack, Honey, would you pass me the number one phillips-head?" she asked.

"Sure, Sweetheart!" Jack boomed cheerfully.

Jack?

Plasmius straightened, a growl on his lips. Ecto-energy begin building in his right hand as he prepared to destroy the fool who dared interrupt his moment with the love of his life. Then caught himself, barely, before he actually did kill Jack.

The Idiot picked up a screwdriver, reversed it and handed the tool to Maddie handle first. "Anything else?"

"No thank you, Dear. That should do for now. Thank you." Maddie smiled, a beautiful smile which could melt the hardest of hearts.

"You're welcome." Jack bent his head back over the Fenton Ghost Finder he was trying to fix.

Vlad swallowed his growl and lowered his hand. He let the ecto-energy drain away from his hand as he was reminded of the real reason he was here. Jack was the objective. Vlad was spying on Jack. At least, he was trying to spy on Jack. It wasn't his fault he kept getting distracted by Maddie.

Beautiful, gorgeous, dainty Maddie. He watched her slender hand turn the screwdriver, tightening down a circuit board. She placed the tool on the table and was reaching for another when the phone upstairs rang.

"I'll get it," both Fentons announced at the same time, then grinned at each other with a sickening amount of sappiness.

"Oh, brownie bits!" Vlad hissed under his breath. What was his problem? If he wasted all his time watching Maddie, he'd never be in a position to properly convert Daniel.

"I'll get the phone, Honey," Maddie said, pushing away from the table. "You get that Fenton Ghost Finder working ASAP."

Jack frowned down at the device. "I hope I can," he responded in a depressed voice. "I thought I had it earlier this morning, but that giant bird ghost broke it more thoroughly than I realized. I think I may have to rebuild from scratch."

Maddie merely squeezed her husband's shoulder as she walked around him and ran upstairs to answer the ringing phone.

To himself, not realizing there was anyone else in the room, Jack muttered in determined tones, "Don't worry, Son. I'll protect you from that nasty ghost bug. As soon as I get the Ghost Finder fixed, your mother and I will find the ghost virus and get rid of it. I promise."

Vlad smirked nastily as he overheard Jack's little speech. If he didn't hate the Idiot so much, he could almost feel sorry for the big buffoon. Jack Fenton truly believed he could protect the very son he had almost destroyed. Plasmius was so tempted to share the joke with Daniel, but the boy probably wouldn't see the humor in it.

With Danny confined to his room, Vlad Plasmius was free to wander around the lower levels of the Fenton residence without worry of ghostly detection. The first job, before he had come to the lab, was to examine the first floor. He had paced the floor, getting to know the layout, touching each picture he passed, noting which closets, cabinets and drawers held what items.

He didn't actually memorize anything. He just wanted to know what was where in case of an emergency.

When he was bored with examining oddly named Fenton knick-knacks, Plasmius had phased invisibly through the floor and into the basement lab. The large lab contained several folding tables covered with broken beakers, shattered circuitry and random bits of spare parts. The recognizable innards of a waffle iron lay on one table. Cabinet doors were shattered, their spines tenaciously hanging onto their hinges. Work stools were tossed every which way, except for the two Jack and Maddie currently sat upon. The floor was covered with ecto-goo and embedded in the wall at the far end of the lab was a seven foot tall circular chrome ring with a black and yellow door.

The Fenton Ghost Portal, designed and built by one Jack Fenton, idiot savant.

Plasmius glanced behind him, looking at the portal once more as he reminisced. It was one of two working man-made doorways into the Ghost Zone; Vlad had the other in his Wisconsin castle. It was this very device which had granted young Daniel his ghost powers. Vlad wasn't sure of the nature of Danny's life-changing encounter with the Fenton Ghost Portal. He did, however, remember the details of the accident over twenty years ago which had changed Vlad Masters into something more than human, Plasmius, while stealing away his chance at a normal life.

Back in college, when he and Jack were friends, Jack had invented a table-sized model of the portal. It was a prototype device. As a scientific rule, prototypes generally never worked the first time around. That's why they were called prototypes. Hence, when Jack foolishly plugged the device in, Vlad had been closely examining the portal, his face right in front of the stupid thing. The bright light emitted by the malfunctioning device gave him a severe case of ecto-acne, sending him to ICU in the nearest hospital. Years later, when Masters was finally released, he found out the love of his life, Maddie, married to the dimwit who had caused his so-called accident.

Many times, Vlad found himself considering the possibility that Jack Fenton had deliberately done the deed in order to steal Maddie away. It was one of those random thoughts he couldn't quite get rid of unless he actually stood in the presence of the Idiot. Then, face to face with the Idiot, Vlad would suddenly remember the reason he called Jack "the Idiot".

Jack Fenton was stupid. Completely incapable of planning something that complicated. The idea that Jack had dreamed up a scheme to rid himself of a romantic rival was ridiculous. Still, the reason why Maddie married the dumb, over-sized ox had completely eluded Vlad. She was smarter than that. And she deserved better than Jack Fenton.

Plasmius looked away from the Portal, suppressing his renewed anger at, and hatred of, Jack. He needed to remain calm. The plan depended on his self-control. He silently snickered as his eyes glanced over at the local area ghost alarm, completely shattered from the "mysterious" ghost attack yesterday. With most of the Fenton ghost detecting devices off-line, Maddie and Jack would never know he was there. He returned his attention to Jack. He had wasted enough time on other things. It was time for him to learn Jack Fenton's mannerisms well enough to fool Daniel.

At least well enough to fool Daniel in the short term. After that, the long term would take care of itself.

"Jack!" Maddie shouted down the stairs, pure delight shading her voice. "Mr. Lancer just called."

The Idiot's head shot up, his eyes widened in alarm. "There's a ghost at the school!" he declared as he frantically looked around for one piece of working equipment he could use to capture a ghost.

"No, Silly. It's about Jazz."

"Jazz has been taken over by a ghost? She has the ghost bug?" Jack really looked panicked now. Plasmius had to fight the burst of evil laughter bubbling in his throat. Oh, this was _too_ sweet!

"No, Jack," Maddie replied with patience in that lovely, melodious voice of hers. "She won a trip to Washington D.C. as part of some honor's program. She leaves tonight if we can pack her suitcase in time."

Jack dropped his tools, panic giving way to joy. "YES!" he shouted running up the stairs after his wife. "I knew Jazzypants was good!"

Excellent. The bait had been taken. Now Vlad just had a few other minor obstacles to move out of the way and Daniel would be his for the taking.


	6. Chapter 5

_Author's Note: Wow. It's been a while. Longer than I intended. Unfortunately, between writing SQL Code and working on my original stuff, I didn't have much time to devote to this. _

_Just an FYI, this chapter was longer, but Vlad insisted on having his moment at the end of this chapter and just would not let it go! I tried to stick more evil stuff in there, but unfortunately, because of Vlad, it's getting saved for Chapter 6. Good news is, though, that Chap 6 is already halfway written, so should be up within a couple of weeks._

_Sorry about the delay!_

_Another note (2/7/06): I reposted this chapter due to minor editing issues. Sorry for any confusion or inconvienence._

--------

The last thing he wanted to do was homework, but it was the only thing left to occupy his time. Sleep was not an option unless he wanted to risk his parents coming up while he was unconscious and using the soon-to-be-repaired Fenton Ghost Finder on him.

Danny Fenton lay sprawled sideways across his bed, eyes focusing and un-focusing at random intervals as he tried to concentrate on the book propped open on against his knees. The headache was now a consistent low-grade pain and hunger was making him giddy. One bowl of cereal, two glasses of milk and three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches within the space of thirty-two hours was not nearly enough food as far as his stomach was concerned. Yet the burnt cinnamon taste in the back of his throat and a threatening bout of nausea made him reluctant to tramp downstairs in search of lunch.

With a reluctant sigh, he returned his attention to the book in hand and re-read the offending paragraph for what seemed to be the fiftieth time.

_If two triangles have two sides equal to two sides respectively, and have the angles contained by the equal straight lines equal, then they also have the base equal to the base, the triangle equals the triangle, and the remaining angles equal the remaining angles respectively, namely those opposite the equal sides._

Danny stared at the words, watching them swim in and out of his vision. Euclid, he was convinced, had devised his postulates for the sole purpose of torturing teenagers. In fact, Danny wouldn't be surprised to find out that this supposedly ancient mathematician was a story actually made up by high school teachers in some vast international conspiracy to mess with the minds of students. On the other hand, if this guy really did exist, Danny found himself hoping he was a ghost. Euclid sorely needed a pounding and, as his Phantom self, Danny would be more than happy to administer the beating of a lifetime or three to the evil mathematician.

Resisting the urge to toss his math book out the window was one of the most difficult fights he had ever fought. This whole postulates and theorems thing was bogus! Who had time to care about numbers and triangles when your life was constantly in danger? It wasn't as if Danny could use math to defeat the Box Ghost. A punch or an ecto-blast worked so much better than knowing the value of pi to the sixth digit.

He released the math book, allowing it to fall shut on his bed. The rest of his homework lay strewn about the covers as if a tornado had hit his backpack. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the sounds of cars honking as they whizzed by his house, birds chirping up a racket somewhere outside his window, his mother shouting something about Jazz going to Washington, and the buzz of a plane passing overhead. Danny sighed again, his cheek pressed against a pillow.

_This makes no sense. I got plenty of sleep last night. So why do I feel like I did a round as Skulker's punching bag?_

He lay there in a boneless heap, his mind drifting for what seemed to be the longest time. It wasn't until he heard the slam of Jazz's bedroom door and the sound of burdened footsteps clomping down the stairs that he realized his morning's wish, that Jazz would go somewhere very far away, was actually coming true. _Desiree?_, he thought in panic. Danny sat up in a rush, instantly regretting the action as his vision went black, a high-pitched whine overwhelmed his hearing and his extremities temporarily lost feeling. When sight and hearing had returned, he found himself stretched out prone across his bed again.

"Note to self," he groaned. "Don't sit up so fast." Then his thoughts returned to Jazz.

Desiree couldn't possibly be responsible for his sister's surprisingly sudden departure. The last time he had checked, the genie ghost did grant wishes, but she couldn't read minds. So, unless she had somehow acquired that as a new power, which he doubted, she wouldn't have "heard" his wish about Jazz. Besides, he hadn't sensed any ghost in the kitchen while he was eating and Desiree wasn't very good at hiding herself. She loved pronouncing "YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND!" at high volumes, so he would have heard her at the very least.

Which meant that Jazz leaving town was a complete, albeit happy, coincidence.

Danny giggled. The sound was strange to his ears which made him giggle again. "Jazz is gone. Gone is Jazz. Up, up and away off to D.C." He stared blankly up at the ceiling for a long moment before giggling again. "Free. No more big sister protectiveness. I'm free... free to..."

_Free to what?_

Sometime during the long pause of him staring at the ceiling, sleep, long-denied but always victorious, sneaked up and ambushed the teenage hero. It dragged his higher functions down into the depths of dreamland where Jazz had been kidnapped by Plasmius and a rainbow-colored freight train roared softly through his head.

-----

Sam caught herself chewing on the end of her pencil and scowled. Pencil chewing was Danny's habit, not hers. She pulled it away from her mouth and tried to concentrate on Mr. Lancer's lecture. The portly teacher was on a Greek mythology kick this week. A subject Sam would have found more interesting if she wasn't so worried about other things.

"…Zeus, the King of the Gods, fancied himself a bit of a ladies' man and would often disguise himself in benign or familiar shapes to gain access to the maiden's boudoir…"

Laughter erupted across the classroom. Sam was startled by the sudden sound until she realized both she and Tucker had joined in with the rest of their classmates.

"Boudoir," Dash snickered as if the word were the most hilarious thing on the planet. Not that the football jock knew what the word meant. He was just trying to show off.

Dash repeat of the word set everyone off again. Some students were laughing so hard, tears were running down their cheeks. Tucker was hiding his chuckles behind his hands. He glanced up at her and Sam knew instantly that he didn't know what the word meant either. The goth hated to admit it, she didn't like laughing in public because it might ruin her reputation, but Lancer's commentary was rather amusing. Of course, she knew exactly what subject Mr. Lancer was dancing around.

"I'm confused," Paulina admitted. Of course, the featherhead would be confused. If Paulina had taken French this year instead of Spanish, a language she already knew, Sam might have a higher opinion of her. "Might" being the operative word. The popular girl would have to work extraordinarily hard to earn even a crumb of respect from Sam. "What exactly is a boudoir?"

Mr. Lancer rose to the challenge. Almost. "Well it means a girl's…" he stopped and cleared his throat.

Sam could almost see the flush of embarrassment on his cheeks. _Does he really think ninth graders didn't know anything about this kind of stuff?_ she thought, fighting down her laughter.

"Nevermind," the teacher finished. "Let's just say Zeus wanted to be friendly to a lot of pretty mortal women so he changed his appearance in order to earn their trust and get their attention."

Sam took the welcome opportunity to get her mind off Danny and Jazz. She courted trouble by explaining, Lancer disapproved of this sort of talk, but she couldn't help herself. She wanted to see the expression on the popular girl's face. "Boudoir means bedroom, Paulina. Zeus was trying to seduce girls without their parents knowing about it."

Mr. Lancer bestowed a glare of monumental proportions upon the goth chick. Sam swallowed, preparing to defend herself against the looming cry of detention when the class bell rang. Relieved, she slapped her notebook shut as Lancer yelled out instead, "I want you all to finish reading the Iliad by Monday. There will be a test. In the meantime, since Ms. Mason knows so much about Zeus, she can prepare an oral report on the mythology behind the god and why he was so important to the ancient Greeks."

Sam threw her books into her backpack, suppressing the urge to retort. Tucker decided to do it for her instead. He had been more than a little overprotective today.

"Come on, Mr. Lancer. Sam's got a ton of homework already!"

"Everyone has a ton of homework, Mr. Foley," the teacher replied smoothly. "Ms. Mason, though, happens to have an extra period free since she's currently not allowed to participate in phys-ed. Now, unless you would like some additional homework yourself…"

Tucker gulped and paled as he quickly handed Sam her crutches. "Here, Sam, lemme take your backpack. We're late for lunch."

------

Tucker hustled his other best friend out of the classroom as fast as he could. Sam could cover some major ground with those crutches now that she was used to them. She was faster than Dash heading across the football field for the touchdown.

"You okay?"

"Tucker, quit hovering," she snapped in return. "I don't need a babysitter!"

"So, sue me for worrying! It's not like Danny is here for…" The techno-geek cut himself off before he could finish the sentence. _Danny._ It wasn't like Danny to be this sick after a ghost fight. Tucker couldn't wait until school was over. He'd be over at the Fenton's checking up on his friend before the end-of-day school bell stopped ringing.

"Tucker," Sam said, her voice soft with understanding. "He'll be fine."

He tried to hide his worry from his goth friend by adjusting his glasses. "Of course he'll be fine. This is Danny we're talking about. He heals faster than anyone I've ever known. He's probably lazing around, designing new strategies to win at Doomed and stuffing his face with his mom's chocolate chip lemon bars."

She bumped up against his shoulder and when he looked at Sam's face, he caught her crooked grin, the private smile she only ever shared with him and Danny. "I'm sure he's planning some dreadful practical joke to play on the both of us when we show up after school. Ten to one odds he'll be back to class tomorrow, complaining with the rest of us about these stupid mythology lessons."

"Right," he replied unconvincingly. When Sam glared at him, though, he managed to put more energy into his voice. "Seriously, though! When you're right, you're right. Right?"

Sam smirked. "Right," she agreed, then pointed her crutch down the hallway. "Now left or we won't get a good table in the cafeteria."

Tucker sniffed the air and grinned, escorting Sam through the crowded doorway in question. "HA! It's beef stew day! They're using the tenderloin cut of meat, too."

"You do realize that meat sniffing talent of yours is utterly disgusting, right?" Sam shuddered with the appropriate amount of disgust.

Tucker humpfed, sticking his nose in the air as they reached their usual table. He dropped his books and Sam's backpack on top of it. "You just don't have an appreciation for the finer things in life. Now let me get your lunch for you."

Sam straightened, sudden worry in her eyes. "Umm, Tucker, I brought my lunch. It's in my backpack."

Tucker grinned. This was too good of an opportunity to pass up and he needed to get his mind off Danny. "What lunch?" He pulled a blue recycled-plastic container out of her backpack which contained leafy greens, shredded carrots and diced tomatoes. "This thing? Please, this is rabbit food. People shouldn't eat rabbit food. Rabbit food is for rabbits. Not people. People should consume meat. Now you just stay here and I'll go get you something _real_ to eat. Something that will help you with your recovery."

"Tucker Foley, don't you dare!" she cried, reaching for her salad.

He grinned, easily dodging the injured girl, and tossed the container towards a nearby trash receptacle. "2 points!" he shouted as the container bounced off the edge of the can and onto the floor. "Or not…"

"_Tucker_," Sam said in her scary voice, "I'm going _kill_ you!"

------

Outside the cafeteria, watery sunlight filtered out between puffs and wads of incoming grey clouds. The temperature dropped a few degrees, hardly noticeable to those who shouted and laughed inside the hallowed halls of learning. And a light wind rattled the bushes and trees in the school yard.

The wind rattled all but one tree, that was. It was a barren old tree which hung over the school cafeteria windows. No one ever looked at the old thing. Everyone who might have were too interested in other, more important things. Such as a fourteen year old nerd being chased around the room by a girl on black crutches. Of course, that's what the giant green ghost vultures, perched on the tree's branches, were interested in too. Danny Phantom's two closest friends.

"Vhat are we doing about the schmart kid and the creepy girl?" one asked.

"We could fly them into the air. And once we're in the air, we drop them from the air, from three stories up in the air. And then they fall from the air and hit the ground," the second offered, bobbing his head. "That would be spectacular."

"Yeah, but vould dropping them from the air be killing them or just making the ghost kid mad?"

"You have a better idea?" snorted the second as he adjusted his fez.

"I'm just saying, if we're gonna drop them from the air, we have to be sure of the hurting and the killing. Three stories in the air? Maybe it's not enough."

"At least I'm with having the plan. You seem to enjoy just sitting on your tuchus doing nothing but complaining."

"Oy! I complain?" The first vulture protested. "I had to listen to your complaints all the way from Wisconsin. Like my life isn't bad enough without you adding to my misery!"

"I'm just saying, you have a better plan, then share your better plan. Vhat do you want to do with the schmart kid and the creepy girl?"

"Enough already with the creepy girl and the schmart kid!" the third vulture groused. "We deal with them later. Now we do some scaring. And get some screaming. And then we play tag with the giant blimp."

The two arguing vultures fluffed their feathers in silence as they considered their leader's orders. "Okay, then," the first one pronounced as he took flight. "On with the pecking!"

"And the smashing. And the dropping of the sticky things. And the shredding of the paper…" the second vulture commented as he too took to the air.

"Oy! Enough already with the laundry list!" the third, and leader, of the vultures proclaimed. "Just attack!"

The three birds phased through the wall of the cafeteria and proceeded to dive-bomb the line of students waiting to be fed.

------

Jack Fenton stared at the cracked, burnt and half-melted box of spare parts sitting in one of the lab's cabinets. He had been sure this particular stash had been fine before he had run upstairs to hear Jazz's good news. Now, though, it was as trashed as everything else in his lab. He shuffled through the parts hopefully, desperately seeking that one circuit board which could repair the Fenton Ghost Finder.

Nothing. Everything was broken.

Depression settled around him like a thick, heavy miasma of gloom. He felt like one of those cartoon characters wandering around with a miniature thunderstorm overhead. In fact, he wouldn't have been at all surprised to hear the crack of lightning and to feel rain falling down upon his head if he didn't know things like that didn't happen in real life.

_Well, they don't happen unless a ghost is involved,_ he amended mentally.

_Danny…_

He tried to fight the sharp pain in his heart. His son was sick, more sick than he had ever been in his entire life. And Jack Fenton, Ghost Hunter Extraordinaire, couldn't do a darn thing about it. What kind of father couldn't help his son when that son needed him the most?

A memory of the Wisconsin ghost, dressed in its fancy white suit with red cape and black gloves, flashed before his eyes. "Idiot!" it had called him. And maybe he was an idiot. He certainly was doing a lousy job of helping Danny. If only there was another way to knock the ghost virus out of Danny. If only…

Jack's stomach growled loudly. He blinked, looked down and placed his hand on his tummy. It growled again. Definitely lunchtime.

_Lunchtime? HA! There_ is_ something I can do! Danny hasn't had lunch yet. In fact, he hasn't eaten much of anything lately!_

Without a word to his wife, who was still working on the vacuum-cleaner like device called the Fenton Weasel, Jack spun on his heels and ran up the basement steps towards the kitchen. Fixing food was the one thing, other than building anti-ghost gadgets and needlepoint, that Jack Fenton could do! And it would give him the perfect excuse to check up on Danny to verify whether or not his son really was suffering from a "normal flu".

He was pulling eggs, cheese and various other ingredients out from the refrigerator when one of the mutant ectoplasmic hot dogs he had inadvertently created nipped at his finger. "OW!" He shook the thing off and smashed it with his foot. "Bad hot dog! Bad!" He glared at the rest of the barking, growling pack. "Don't even think about it, you poor excuses of a meat substitute product! Or I'll do the same to you!"

The pack of hot dogs stopped growling and glanced at each other. The one under his foot whimpered, which sent the ones still in the fridge cowering back against the shelf. "Better," he declared as he finished grabbing his lunch parts. After he closed the door, he used a whisk broom and dust pan to clean up the smooshed hot dog and sent it howling down the Fenton Ghost Food Incinerator chute.

"Jack, what are you doing?"

Jack looked up from the cupboard he had stuck his head in. "Looking for the skillet. My tummy is rumbly and if _my_ tummy is rumbly, I'm sure Danny is _starving_!"

Maddie blinked in surprise then smiled warmly at him. It always gave him the shivers, in a good way, when she smiled at him. He was never exactly sure of what he did to win her heart, but he did know she was one of three best things that had ever happened to him, Jazz and Danny being the second and third, and every day he found himself falling in love with his brilliant, wonderful, incredible and so-much-better-than-he-ever-deserved wife all over again.

"All right, but no ranchos huevos, okay?"

"Maddie, please! Ranchos huevos are nature's perfect food! It'll clean out Danny's system in a matter of hours. It's not as good as using the Fenton Weasel to suck the ghost virus out of his system, of course. Still, I doubt there's a ghost virus in the world that could stand up to a big helping of…"

"Jack! I said no ranchos huevos. If you want to make him soup or sandwiches, that's fine. I don't want him feeling any worse than he already is. Even if it is temporary."

"Awwwwww… But, Maddie…"

BOOOOOOOOOOOO, interrupted the musical ring of the Fenton telephone.

"I'll get it!" both Fentons chimed, then laughed at each other.

"I'll get it, Jack. You find your skillet."

"Yes, Dear." Jack thrust his head back into the cupboard, searching around until he found the item he was looking for. Just for good measure, he grabbed a small soup pot. He could always heat up the chicken noodle from last night and pretend that's what he was taking up to his son's room. Ranchos heuvos could be hidden by an upside bowl and he'd take the soup pot up with him "in case Danny wanted all the soup". Oh, and a few apple-doodle cookies for desert. Danny loved his mother's apple-doodles. _Come to think of it, so do I. HA! A plate! A plate of apple-doodles for desert and we can split them while my son and I talk about ghosts, needlepoint and other manly things._

"What kind of ghosts?" Maddie asked loudly.

"GHOSTS?" Jack slammed his head against the top of the cupboard as he pulled out. "Ouch. That hurt." He dropped the pot and skillet on the counter. "Ghosts?" he asked his wife again.

She shushed him as she listened intently to the phone. "I'm sorry. I can't quite make out what you're saying. Can you repeat... Yes... Yes... The high school? We'll be right there!"

"Maddie, who was that? What's wrong? "

She dropped the phone back in its cradle. "Don't know. Couldn't quite make out the voice, but it didn't sound like Mr. Lancer or Principal Ishiyama. Whomever it was says there are ghosts terrorizing Casper High."

Fear constricted Jack's heart. For a moment, he could only think of one thing. "Jazz," he breathed.

"Honey, you grab the Fenton Fisher and the Fenton bazooka and I'll get the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle started."

Then Jack remembered something else. "But Danny..."

Maddie smiled as she grabbed the RV's keys. "He'll be fine, Sweetie. He's probably upstairs sleeping like a baby. We'll be back so fast he won't even know we're gone."

"Right! Maddie, I'll grab the weapons, you get the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle started."

As he ran for the lab, he heard his beloved wife comment, "And that's why we make a good team."

-----

Things were going well until Jack Fenton turned and shot up the stairs without a word. It took Maddie a few moments to notice the Idiot had disappeared, but Plasmius noticed it instantly. Jack's actions worried him. The Idiot wasn't as predictable as Vlad liked to pretend he was, so the half-ghost followed him up the stairs as soon as he recovered from his startlement at the bigger man's impulsive speed.

When the Idiot headed for the kitchen instead of the second floor, Vlad was relieved. When Maddie came in to ask Jack what he was doing, however, the plan started falling apart.

So far, Plasmius had been able to keep Jack from Danny's side by the mere expedient of having the vultures destroy most of the Fenton arsenal and ghost detection equipment. Jack was so obsessed with the hunting and capturing of ghosts, there would be no feasible way he'd be able to resist the need to fix all his equipment. The bonus, of course, was that the Idiot was convinced, correctly for once, that Danny's illness was due to a spectral agent of some sort and only the repair of his equipment would enable him to "rescue" his son.

"Jack, what are you doing?" Maddie asked from behind Vlad, completely unaware that the man of her dreams was hovering invisibly before her.

"Looking for the skillet. My tummy is rumbly and if _my_ tummy is rumbly, I'm sure Danny is _starving_!"

That one statement froze Plasmius in his tracks. Jack was making his son lunch? What kind of man made his son lunch? Worse, if Danny saw Jack now, there would be no way Vlad's plan would work. He had to keep the two separated. And he had to act fast.

He flew into the living room and then out of the building, checking his watch. If his pilot was on schedule, the cats were due to arrive within the next hour, give or take a few minutes. The only question which remained was whether or not the vultures were on schedule. They tended to sit around bickering instead of getting their work done, using the excuse that they were old and needed their beauty sleep.

There was no help for it. To keep Jack away from Danny, Vlad had to make the call. He didn't want to, but he dared not wait for someone at Casper to set off the school's ghost alert siren.

Plasmius pulled out a private cell phone whose number never showed on caller ID. He used it only for special occasions and emergencies, and this definitely qualified as an emergency. Dialing the Fenton residence, he waited until Maddie answered in that gorgeous soprano voice of hers.

"Hello?"

"Help!" Vlad cried softly over the cell in a harsh falsetto. "They're tearing everything apart! You have to help!"

"Who is tearing everything apart? Who is this? What can we do to assist you?"

"The ghosts. They're ruining the school. You have to come quickly!"

"What kind of ghosts?"

In the background, Vlad could hear Jack shout "GHOSTS?" and then a thud. He snickered, knowing full well the Idiot had hurt himself somehow. Revenge was a very savory dish.

"I'm sorry. I can't quite make out what you're saying," Maddie said. "Can you repeat..."

_Strawberry strudel! I have to stop doing that!_ "Bird ghosts. Giant bird ghosts," he responded in the same falsetto he used a minute ago. Maddie, unfortunately, was too distracted by the Idiot to recognize his voice or realize she was being set up. She responded exactly as Vlad planned as he continued to give her the information. "At Casper. We're at Casper High. You must help!"

He disconnected the call as soon as she said the words "We'll be right there." It hurt Vlad to deceive his love this way. Maddie was the understanding type, though, and once Jack was completely gone, she would forgive Vlad and fall willingly into his arms.

Success was his. Maddie and Jack grabbed the few weapons they had working, leapt into the heavily armored RV and practically bowled over a passing car in their hurry to get out of their driveway. Waiting until the Fentons were several blocks away, Vlad decided to risk a peek into Danny's bedroom to see how the young boy was doing.

A quick glance told him the boy was sound asleep. No one could sprawl across a bed in such an uncomfortable position if they were awake.

Vlad phased inside of the young teenager's room and turned back into his human form as he became visible. It was important to keep the orange hazmat suit in Danny's view in case he woke up. Masters hesitated, trying to figure out which step of his plan would be best to use next.

_What would Jack do?_ The villain asked himself, then grinned as the answer came to him. Vlad picked up the books and notepads laying on the bed, neatly closing them and stacking them on the nightstand. The pen Danny had been using he pulled from his young foe's half-clenched fingers and put beside the notepads. Then Vlad tugged off Danny's shoes, pulled the blanket out from under his young soon-to-be apprentice and tucked it over and around the boy.

Danny tossed restlessly while Masters adjusted the blanket.

"Hush, Danny," the older man whispered, placing his hand lightly on the sleeping boy's forehead. "It's just me, Son. Relax." He kept whispering the same words until Danny stopped moving.

"That's a good boy, Danny. You just sleep now." Masters stood up and looked his rival over one last time. For a brief moment, his eyes glowed red with glee. "Daddy will make you all better."

"Eventually."

-----


	7. Chapter 6

_Author's Note: There is violence in this chapter. No death, no gore, very little blood, but definitely with the shooting and the hitting and the ouchies. I tried to keep it to a minimum, but the nature of what I was trying to achieve with this chapter required some fighting. Please forgive me in advance, and if you're not sure you want to see it, then I advise not continuing on with this chapter._

_For comparison purposes, the violence is this chapter is on par with the violence of the very first Harry Potter movie, but no worse._

_Next note: This is my favorite chapter so far and I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts. Do you like it / hate it? Did it go the way you wanted it to or was there something else you envisioned in this spot? Lemme know! _

-------

Trying to run on crutches was hard enough without trying to fight through a crowd of terrified teens who were going in fifty different directions at the same time.

Someone unceremoniously shoved Sam into a wall. Her head cracked against a fire extinguisher, but no one heard her "Ow!" above the screams of the crowd. The few teachers braving the storm unleashed in Casper High's halls were simply not enough to quell the stampede.

The ghost bird dove towards the masses again, this time with stew pot in claw. It dumped the contents over Paulina and her blonde friend Star, with some of the gelatinous goo hitting Dash, Kwan and a few other football players. "Boo, already!" the ghost cried, clacking its very sharp beak in the popular clique's direction. The girls shrieked, the guys yelled and the whole passel of them turned as if they were controlled by the same mind and fled down the corridor.

Sam stayed huddled against the wall, and out of everyone's way, while she looked for Tucker. They had been separated almost instantly when the ghosts attacked due to the distance between them. If she had known there was about to be a ghost invasion, she wouldn't have been chasing Tucker around the cafeteria. Unfortunately, she didn't know and she did chase her friend around. Then everyone else jumped up and screamed at the top of their lungs as they ran towards the exit. Unable to steer her way where she actually wanted to go, the goth had been at the mercy of the crowd. Tucker's red beret had been a signpost to his location until a senior's elbow knocked it off and, presumably, knocked Tucker to the ground.

_Come on, Danny. Hurry up and get with the program,_ she caught herself thinking before she remembered her other best friend couldn't "go ghost" and save the day. He was at home today, sick and still recovering.

Tempted as she was to pull out her cell phone and call him, she didn't want to jeopardize his recovery. He would come to the rescue if she asked. He always did. Danny Phantom had never let her down in that regard. However, Sam knew herself well enough to realize if she called him and he came, and if the act of fighting these bird ghosts made his condition worse, she would never forgive herself. So she waited against the wall, resisting the urge to pull out her phone. One way or another, she and Tucker would have to find a way to resolve this problem without Amity Park's ghostly protector.

"'When Worlds Collide'!" Lancer quoted into his squealing bullhorn as one of the birds discovered a large bowling bag. The bird picked up the bag, heading directly for the unsuspecting English teacher. "Move to the exits in an orderly fashion, People. Haste makes waste. A stitch in time saves nine. A rolling stone gathers no..."

That's when the bird opened the bag and dropped the neon pink bowling ball inside right on top of Lancer. The teacher yelped, dropping the bullhorn and dodging, barely, out of the way. Sam would have laughed at the distress on his face if the situation wasn't so serious. _What can I do? Crutches aren't exactly useful weapons in this kind of fight._

"Do these ghosts seem familiar to you?" a voice to the side of her asked.

Sam started, nearly falling over. Tucker instantly reached out to steady her. "You okay? I couldn't get to you when the riot started."

"This is a riot?" she asked sardonically.

"Close enough," Tucker rolled his eyes. "You know what I meant."

She nodded then reassured him. "I'm fine. Where's your hat?"

"Lost, trampled, and probably halfway to Albuquerque by now," he whined. "And it was my favorite hat too."

Sam patted his arm as she looked back up at the ghosts zigzagging around with printer ink, filled janitor buckets and sludge from the kitchen's grease trap. Tucker was right. She recognized them from somewhere. "That's odd," she noted. "It's as if they're deliberately going out of their way to harass or annoy everyone, but not to hurt anyone. I wonder why?"

"I noticed that," Tucker agreed as one of the birds scattered ice all over the corridor floor. "I thought for a moment they were trying to get Danny's attention. That can't be right, though. They should have figured out he isn't here by now."

Sam snorted. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say they look like Plasmius's pet vultures. You know, the ones that tried to kidnap us when he put a bounty on Danny's head."

"Nah." Tucker dismissed her conclusion with a wave of his hand. "Plasmius knows were Danny lives. The guy doesn't have to send his vultures out looking for him. He just has to wait until Danny's on his way home or something."

Sighing, the goth retorted, "Hence the use of the phrase 'if I didn't know any better'."

Another bird – or was it the same one who had thrown the bowling ball? With the three of them moving around so much, it was hard for Sam to keep track which one was which – picked up a crate of glasses and started throwing them at the wall. One shattered right above her head. Tucker covered his own head protectively then, after the glass had fallen, tried to cover Sam's head. She whacked him on the arm in disgust. "That's hardly chivalrous."

"Since when do you like chivalry?" he complained, rubbing his sore arm.

"We've got to do something about this mess," she said instead.

"Like what?" Tucker asked sarcastically. "Quote famous book titles at them and hope it scares them into behaving?"

"How about throwing our textbooks at them?"

"Except they can turn intangible to avoid the books and then birds will shred them and throw the remains back at us."

"Yeah," she quipped, suddenly finding the humor in their current predicament. "But then we can tell the teachers a ghost ate our homework and we won't be lying!"

Tucker brightened. "Hey! I like that idea!"

Across the hallway from the two friends, a bank of locker doors tore open and their contents took flight. Pages, torn from textbooks and notepads alike, formed a white and black tornado which churned wildly in front of them.

"Not good!" Tucker tried to huddle behind Sam. "Death by paper cut is not the way I want to go!"

Sam stepped forward as the paper tornado moved towards her, lifting her left crutch. It wasn't much of a weapon, but maybe she could destroy the ectoplasmic construct before it did much damage. She batted at it as it traveled closer to her, succeeding only in tearing a few papers out of its heart. "Tucker help me!"

"In case you haven't noticed, Sam, we don't have ghost powers or any weapons that can affect ghosts." Despite his protests, he grabbed the fire extinguisher off the wall and pulled the pin. "Which means, unless we've sudden become professional ghost hunters, we have no way to defend ourselves. So, why are we the ones fighting the ghosts?"

"Because Danny isn't here!" she growled as she took another swing at the paper tornado which was now cutting up her shirt sleeves and arms. "So unless you know of someone else who can fight ghosts…"

Sam's voice trailed off as her brain kicked into gear. Eyes wide, she looked over her shoulder at Tucker who had dropped the fire extinguisher. "Duh!" the two friends chorused.

"Call the Fentons," Sam cried out, hopping back to the wall, away from the approaching tornado.

"On it!" Tucker fumbled for his PDA.

"Do not fear, Students of Casper High," a female voice came over a bullhorn speaker. "We, Maddie and Jack Fenton, are here to protect you!"

"Stop right there, you feathered felon!" Jack Fenton, Danny's father, proclaimed, casting his Fenton Fisher at the nearest bird ghost, who just happened to be the ghost controlling the tornado.

Tucker looked up in relief. "Nevermind!"

"Oh, good!" Sam collapsed against the wall, her and Tucker both doing their best to become impossible-to-hit targets while they waited for the professional ghost hunters to sort things out.

-------

"GHOOOOOSSSSTTTTSSS!" a familiar male tenor reverberated in his dreams. "Maddie, quick! Grab the Fenton bazooka!"

Danny struggled against the quicksand mud, which mired his legs, and the thick green vines wrapped tightly around his arms and throat. Much to his dismay, he hadn't been able to catch up to the train, which seemed faint and insubstantial this time around. It had taken something or someone important from him, but he couldn't quite remember what or who it was. Now he stared at an orange-jumpsuited figure hanging limply from a lamppost whose face was covered with shadows and whose hair kept flickering between black and white.

"We have to protect Danny!" came another shout in the same male voice, which he finally recognized as sound coming from outside the dream.

The mud and vines were slowly strangling him, preventing him from escaping. The more he struggled, the worse things got. He willed himself intangible, desperation pumping adrenaline through his veins. He had to get free. He had to get…

THUMP! CRAAACK!

Pain exploded along the edge of his forehead as something solid and wooden hit him. Or did he hit something solid and wooden? He was falling, rolling actually, tossed back and forth by an unseen force. Danny tried to open his eyes and was greeted by a white world twisting before him. Finally the fall stopped. Taking a cautious breath, he reached for his forehead, whacking his knuckles against a sharp, carpeted edge. After a long moment of focusing his eyesight, he realized he was staring at a wall. Gingerly, he explored the sharp edge with his fingers and dimly recognized it as a stair. Carefully, slowly, he pushed himself upright, trying to ignore the headache that had just turned into a major migraine.

"Oh great," Danny muttered sarcastically as he realized what had happened. The dream had been so real, he had used his powers in his sleep. The need to escape the mud and vines had activated his intangibility. He had phased straight through his bed and onto the bottom of the living room steps. He had the sensation that something warm was crawling down the side of his head, but when he put his hand up to check, all he found was blood from a small cut fast becoming a large, tender lump. He glanced back at the staircase and saw a bit of blood on one of the banister posts. "Mom's gonna kill me."

It took that comment to draw his attention to the fact that neither his mom nor his dad were present to have seen him come through the ceiling. Which meant, if asked, he could honestly say he fell on his way downstairs. After all, there were no witnesses to refute the excuse.

"EEEEEEEEIIIIIEEEEEEE!"

Danny started, turning his head way too fast. The room around him swirled and swam as he grabbed the banister for support. The combat-ready part of his brain processed the sound as the rest of him recovered from the dizzy spell. This scream wasn't familiar. In fact, it sounded like an innocent bystander kind of scream. And it was coming from outside the Fenton Works.

Superhero instincts engaged, Danny jumped to his feet, wobbled uneasily as the world tilted yet again and pain stabbed through his head. "Going Ghost!" he cried anyway as he invoked his spectral powers. He could still feel the effects of the adrenaline in his system as the usual white light shot around his form and changed his clothes, hair and eyes in a blink. The surge of power actually added to the adrenaline, helping him hold the pain back. Now Danny Phantom instead of Danny Fenton, the ghost boy turned himself intangible and invisible – it wouldn't do him any good to be seen coming out of the Fenton Works in his Phantom form – and rocketed through the front wall to see what the commotion was all about.

Prowling the sidewalks were two giant ghost cats, eerily similar to the two ghost cats he had caught the other day, purring, sinking their claws into the cement and rubbing their faces alongside the porch. Fortunately, not a single person was in sight. That meant he didn't have to hold back.

"Sorry, Kitties. But it's time to find some other scratching post to use," Danny quipped as he turned visible. He shot an ectoplasmic blast at one and frowned when it splashed across the cat's back with no visible damage. Both cats looked up at him, hissing loudly.

"O-kay," he remarked slowly to himself. "Ghost powers still not at full strength. This can't be good."

The larger of the two cats jumped at him, claws extended. Danny dodged to the side, then yelped as something sharp and needle-like grabbed his right leg. The sharp was quickly followed by a slow burning sensation. He looked down to see the other cat had fastened its mouth around his thigh. His jumpsuit was dissolving where the cat's jaws clamped down and he could feel the hot blaze of the saliva as it enter his bloodstream.

"Hey! No biting of the superhero allowed!" He focused as much of his energy as he could into another ecto-blast and shot this one at the second cat's eyes. The cat screamed, or yowled, releasing its grip and falling to the ground. Before Phantom could celebrate his victory, however, a heavy weight slammed into his back, sending him towards the sidewalk.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

Someone was hurt. The cry of pain filled Danny's ears as his vision swam and he slammed into the concrete porch, unable to turn intangible in time. He had to help whomever was hurt; it was written somewhere in the "superhero ethics manual" every hero was supposed to get when they received their powers. At least, that's how it worked in the comic books. "Help the innocent regardless of your own problems."

Danny felt his head bounce against the steps, hitting the exact same spot on his temple where he had collided with the banister post. More pain. Spots of intense, searing agony dotted his back. In the distance, he could hear the returning roar of the rainbow-colored freight train and someone screaming as if he were being tortured. The sounds were unbearable to listen to. He had to get up. He had to help whoever was in trouble.

As he struggled to his feet, two very nasty cats advancing towards him with green acid saliva dripping from their fangs, Danny groaned again, fighting back nausea and pain as he realized the cry had been his own. His body was betraying him. Knees buckling, hands shaking, strength waning, he could barely stand. _Get rid of ghosts first, collapse later,_ he told himself.

"Go away," he said to the ghost cats through gritted teeth. "Shoo! Go on! Get out of here!"

When the cats launched themselves at him again, Danny reacted instinctively. The ghost boy created an ecto-shield which he used as leverage to throw the cats into the air. Then he flew up, shooting at them with the remnants of his power while they were defenseless. The cats yowled and hissed, twisting and landing, one on a car, the other on the street. A figure in an orange jumpsuit came running around the corner, a Fenton bazooka in hand. _Dad?_ That was all he needed, for his father to try and take out the "evil ghost kid" while Danny was trying to protect the house from the more dangerous cat ghosts.

The cats jumped towards Danny again, simultaneously. The ghost boy reached for the last of his strength, trying to power up just one more ecto-blast, when a white light filled the edges of his vision. Stomach heaving, head threatening to burst open and eyes going blurry and sparkly at the same time, he went from Phantom to Fenton and fell from the sky like a lead brick.

"Back you evil cat ghosts!" the familiar voice cried. The sound of firing ecto-blasts echoed through the air. The cats yowled and Danny hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud.

Stars and lightning bolts flooded his vision. The agony of his injuries and the fire of the cat saliva all swirled into one giant haze of anguish. Danny couldn't move. He could barely think. Fear churned inside. Since Walker had set him up several months ago as Public Ghost Enemy Number One, his parents had hated his ghost half. They had done everything in their power to take him down despite his attempts to proclaim his innocence. He had worked extra hard after that day to make sure his parents didn't find out his secret. There was no way his father could have missed his transformation, though. And even if he did, when Dad came running to catch the ghost kid, all he would find was his son.

"No."

There was horror in that whisper, and dread. Despite the freight train running circles through his skull, Danny could still pick up the nuisances in the voice of the approaching man.

"Danny?" Denial threaded thick through his father's tenor tones.

Orange and black added their presence to the kaleidoscope colors of Danny's vision. The vague shape of a hand and thin arm reached out to his face, an act of touching without actually touching. "Danny…" Disbelief in that voice now. "You…You're the ghost child?"

_No!_ Danny tried to form his thoughts into something more tangible than his own stark terror over the possibility that his father might reject him. Tears threatened, but he managed, just barely, to hold them back.

Danny Phantom's life was officially over.

"Danny. Danny, Son, speak to me. Are you okay?"

"Dad," he moaned, his throat tight with guilt. What should he say? What could he say? "Dad, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

His father pulled him into a gentle, loving hug. "Oh, Danie…Danny. My poor boy. You don't have to apologize for anything. I understand. I don't care if you are the ghost kid. You're still my son."

"You…You don't? I am?" Danny could feel himself shivering, violently, just like yesterday. Heat boiled along his veins but his skin felt like ice. He was cold, so unbearably cold. His dad didn't blame him?

"No, Danny. I don't. I love you, Son. I always have. I wish you would have told me. I could have been there for you. I could have fixed you. But, I'm here for you now, Son. Everything is going to be alright. I promise."

_He loves me,_ a small part of Danny's mind cheered in relief. _Dad still loves me! He doesn't hate me. I knew it!_

Wet salt hit his lips, dripping off the end of his nose. He was crying. Why was he crying now? Everything was good. Perfect, in fact. He was vindicated! His father loved him just the way he was; which was exactly what he had tried to tell Plasmius so long ago during their first battle. Spasms racked his muscles. His thoughts scattered like a handful of marbles dropped on a smooth gymnasium floor. And for a brief moment, Danny's vision cleared. A small, thin man with white hair was using a neatly pressed handkerchief with the initials V.M. embroidered on the corner to sop up the blood running down Danny's face.

Blind panic roared up, temporarily overwhelming the pain. _Bad. BadbadBADbadbad._ This was wrong. Horribly, terribly wrong.

"No!" Danny tried to yell, but the word caught in his throat. It came out instead as a strangled yelp. He didn't know why, couldn't even process the reason, but something in his mind was screaming for him to run, so he tried to pull away.

He didn't make it far. He had used up everything fighting the ghost cats and the grip holding him was much stronger than he had realized.

"Danny?" the man asked in shock. "Danny, what's wrong?"

"You," he thrashed weakly in the man's grip. "You're not…him."

The grip around him tightened as a wave of vertigo crashed around him.

"Danny," the man soothed softly. "Danny look at me. I don't know who you think I am, but I do know that I'm your father. Who else wears an orange day-glow spandex jumpsuit? Who else would take care of you when you're so sick? I was making ranchos heuvos for your lunch when the ghost cats attacked. Son, you need to stop struggling. You have a very bad concussion and fighting is only going to make things worse. The ghost cat venom isn't helping. It makes people experience hallucinations."

_Hallucinations?_ Even if he wanted to continue fighting the hold on him, he was physically unable to. The tremors slammed into him again, painfully contracting muscles Danny had never known he actually had. He tried to look at the man again but everything spun and spiraled around him. The only solid object in his vision was the rainbow colored freight train charging by on the street.

_I _am_ hallucinating,_ he realized. _Freight trains use railroad tracks, not streets._

"Venom causes hallucinations?" he gasped, desperate for a coherent thought to keep his mind together while something proceeded to use the inside of his head for a drum kit.

"Of course it does, Danny. Why do you think I've been so worried about you the past two days."

Danny felt himself lifted up by the strong, comforting arms and his panic receded. _Hallucinations._ Relief washed away the tremors, leaving him limp with fatigue. This explained so much. The strange dreams, the inability to see straight or concentrate._ I'm seeing things. Dreaming things._ And Dad was carrying him back _into_ the Fenton Works, not away. _Maybe all of this is a dream. Maybe Dad didn't just see me transform from ghost to human. I'll wake up and there won't really be any bruises or concussion or anything else. I'm dreaming and when I wake up, everything else will be back to normal. _

It didn't occur to him to question how his father knew so much about the ghost cats in the first place.

"Relax, Danny. Daddy will take all the pain away, I promise. You just have to rest and trust me. You do trust your father, don't you, Son?"

_Dad…_ He could feel himself falling unconscious, the way he used to do when he first got his ghost powers and wasn't used to them. No. It had to be Dad. Plasmius wouldn't protect him from the ghost cats. Certainly Plasmius wouldn't return him to his home. His arch-enemy would leave him to die, unlike his father, who was always there when Danny really, truly needed him.

"You trust _me_, don't you, Danny?" His father's voice, gently insistent, penetrated his drifting thoughts.

_Dad still loves me despite my being half-ghost._

There was joy in that thought, and a release of the fear he had lived with since the day Walker had turned Amity Park into Danny Phantom's living prison. "Yes, Dad," he muttered as the rainbow colored freight train dragged him back into his odd little world of dreams. "I trust you."

------

"You trust _me_, don't you, Danny?" Vlad asked, his soft tones insistent. Time to see if his acting skills were having the desired effect.

Daniel's eyes were no longer open. The boy was barely conscious. After a long moment, the answer, phrased in the quietest of whispers, came. "Yes, Dad. I trust…" If there were additional words, they were lost as the boy's head lolled to the side and he lost the fight to remain awake.

"Excellent."

Vlad Masters smirked as he carried his sleeping foe upstairs to the second floor and tucked Daniel back into bed. Despite the setbacks, it had been a good day's work. He reached into his jumpsuit pocket and pulled out a mini-CD player. A quick glance verified the batteries were still good. Vlad adjusted the volume control then leaned over, slipping the device under boy's pillow and hitting the play button. The words were faint from where he stood, yet he didn't need to hear them. He knew exactly what the endless loop of dialogue said.

Satisfied Daniel would be able to hear CD player just fine while he slept, Vlad eased out of his young foe's bedroom, closed the door and pulled a thick envelope from another pocket. "And now, before I lose all this wonderful progress I've been making with my son, it's time to rid myself of the Idiot."

-----

In his dreams, he was a child again. Sitting on the sidewalk with Sam and Tucker on either side, he watched as gothic circus performers paraded by in all their hauntingly dark and tattooed glory. Sam was voicelessly cheering, Tucker was wordlessly complaining, and Danny knew he should be worried. He recognized the ringmaster, and the dangerous red-globe staff the ringmaster carried. The ringmaster would come and take Danny away with the circus, use the staff to control Danny and make him do all sorts of bad things. If the ringmaster could find Danny. And the ringmaster was definitely looking for him. Danny had absolutely no doubt about that.

Danny was safe, though. He was in his father's lap with his father's orange-and-black clad arms wrapped warmly, protectively, around him. And while the ringmaster fruitlessly searched the crowd, his father's soothing tenor voice whispered the same comforting words into his ear, over and over and over again.

"Relax, Danny. Your dad Vlad is here. I'll take care of you, I promise. Everything is going to be fine. You trust your father to protect you, don't you? You trust me to keep you safe? Father is here, Danny. Believe me, I won't let that nasty enemy of yours, Jack, ever come near you again."

-----


	8. Chapter 7

_Author's Note: Sorry, Everyone. I would have updated sooner had I time but a major project at work came up and I had to work a little extra to get it done. This chapter isn't my best work, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. As always, DP belongs to Butch and reviews are welcome._

-------

As a rule, Jasmine Fenton was not a proud person.

Sure, she liked being praised for her hard work, her polite manners and her brilliant, logical mind. Yes, her parents' mere existence managed to embarrass her on a minute-by-minute basis. And she definitely liked being well dressed with just a dash of make-up. But even if vanity was one of her faults, pride definitely was not.

Unlike the rest of the Casper High Student Body, she didn't wait with the throng to get through a proper school exit. When she realized everyone was heading in the same directions, she made the smart choice and took a tumble through a first-floor classroom window. Granted, her long red hair had twigs snarled in it from the bushes below the window and now she had grass stains on her new jeans, but at least she was outside the building. The shrieks echoing through the school windows indicated few people were quite as lucky.

A window opened up from another classroom down the way and one of Danny's classmates, Valerie Grey, dropped out. The younger girl was wearing bits and pieces of the cafeteria's chicken salad sandwiches. Jazz's first reaction was surprise at Valerie's somersault gymnastics which got her back on her feet. Then Jazz remembered over-hearing a conversation which had occurred a few short weeks ago at the end of Dome-Watch. Valerie's father had been giving her what-for over the fact that she was apparently a part-time ghost hunter. Valerie had been furious because the ghost kid had exposed her secret to her father.

_Ghost hunter?_ Jazz froze, her hands tight around her books. It hadn't occurred to her until now that Amity Park had more ghost hunters than just her parents. Was Valerie hunting Danny? _That would be bad._

The teen ghost hunter brushed off her skirt as she looked around, froze as she saw Jazz. Then a slow, feral grin crossed over her face. "Hey, Jazz. How's it hanging?"

Jazz blinked. "Umm. It's hanging?"

"Cool." Seemly oblivious to Jazz's hesitation, the ghost hunting teen approached the eldest Fenton child like a predator seeking meat. "So, tell me, Jazz. I don't suppose you carry any of your parent's ghost hunting weapons around with you, do you?"

Jazz was so startled by the unexpected question, she almost answered it with "_As a matter of fact, the Fenton Peeler is in my car._" She caught herself just in time, continuing the thought in her head, _but if you think I'm going to give you one of my parents inventions so you can use it later to hunt down my baby brother…_

"Jazz?" Valerie prompted, having not yet gotten her answer.

"Me?" Jazz protested, her voice carrying a high, squeaky edge to it. "Carry around ghost hunting equipment? When half of the stuff my parents build doesn't even work properly? What do you take me for, some dopey techno-geek?"

Valerie sighed, her smile fading. "Oh, right. Sorry about that. It's just, I hate standing here when ghosts are attacking the school and I can't do anything about it."

"I know how you feel, Valerie, but it's safer for us to stay out of the way and let the professionals – I mean, my parents – handle the situation."

"Speaking of which, where are your parents? And why hasn't Lancer set off the ghost alert siren already?" Valerie asked as she brushed chicken salad off her blouse.

The older teen frowned, not sure how she wanted to answer that question. She had been wondering the exact same thing about the siren. It had been specifically installed to alert the school, and her parents, if ghosts had invaded the school. So why hadn't someone set it off? Before she had a chance to formulate a response, the harsh sound of a stressed tank engine reached her ears. Since the RV, also known as the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle, was the only vehicle in town with an actual tank engine, Jazz turned with relief to see her parents driving through the chain-link fence surrounding the school.

"Aw, darnit!" Valerie cursed softly. The younger teen sounded disappointed the Fentons were here.

Jazz ignored her. She was just gratefully Danny wasn't here today or he'd be getting it from three sides; the ghosts, Valerie and her parents. She ran towards the RV as her parents jumped out. "Mom, Dad! Am I glad you're here!"

"Jazz!" Her parents cried out simultaneously. They both wrapped her in a brief, but strong, bear hug.

"I'm so glad you're all right, Sweetie," Mom said, pulling one of the twigs out of Jazz's hair.

"Where are the ghosts?" her father demanded.

"I'm not sure. All I know is there are three of them and they're chasing everyone around the school." Jazz looked at the Fenton Fisher, bazooka and bullhorn her parents held and felt her heart sink. She had forgotten about the damage done to the Fenton Works yesterday. If this was the only weaponry her parents had left to use on these ghosts, it was going to be a long, hard fight. She probably wouldn't even get to the airport in time to make her flight to Washington.

Guilt flushed her cheeks the instant she had the thought. Her little brother was sick, her parents' lab and ghost hunting equipment was almost completely devastated, Casper High was under attack by three vicious ghosts and all Jazz Fenton could concentrate on was missing her stupid trip to D.C. _Wow. Are my priorities screwed up or what?_

No sooner than the teenager had the thought about missing her plane than her mother kissed her on the cheek. "We didn't know how long this would take, Dear, so your father threw your suitcases in the RV. Do you need gas money or can your car make it to the airport with what it has?"

Elation made her heart jump. "I should be able to get to the airport just fine, Mom."

"Good. If we don't get this problem resolved in the next hour, you go ahead to the airport. We'll explain everything to Mr. Lancer. In the meantime, Jazz, you stay here by the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle and away from those ghosts. Understand?"

"Yes, Mom. Thanks, Mom."

"Maddie," Jack whined, doing a little dance of impatience by Casper High's front doors. "There are ghosts in the school!"

"Coming, Jack!"

As Jazz's parents ran inside the school, she found herself thinking that sometimes her parents weren't so messed up after all.

-------

The Tornado of Paper Cut Doom collapsed the minute Mr. Fenton had the ghost bird responsible for its creation on the run. Tucker grabbed Sam's arm and half-dragged her into an empty classroom. The pair were the only people in the school, aside from Danny's parents, who weren't trying to make it to the nearest exit at mach five. The ghost zipped past the open door, both Fentons on its tail.

If Tucker was going to be honest with himself, he had never thought too highly of the Fentons' ability to capture ghosts. It was an attitude engendered by Danny's constant embarrassment over his parents' obsessive ghost-related behavior. Sam, the techno-geek knew, was in complete agreement. After all, they couldn't figure out Amity Park's ghost boy was their own son. So why should anyone, let alone said son's best friends, have any respect for their clumsy skills and over-the-top attitudes. It was part of the reason he and Sam had not originally considered the Fentons as a solution to the ghost bird problem.

With Danny sick, though, his parents were the only ones who could be relied upon to take care of any ghostly problems. Fortunately, they arrived rather quickly considering the school's ghost alert sirens hadn't gone off. Sam silently slid to the floor behind him, put her crutches aside and critically examined the cuts on her arms as Tucker peered around the corner to watch the ghost fight. He wasn't a professional ghost hunter, having never been paid for his work, but he had assisted Danny enough over the past several months to have a good sense of when a ghost hunt was going to be easy or not. And these ghost birds definitely didn't have the feel of an easy victory to him.

"Tucker," Sam said quietly behind him. "We have a problem."

He nodded absently, watching the Fentons slid around a corner after the ghost they were chasing. "I noticed."

She sighed heavily, then picked up a crutch and gave him a gentle whack on the shin with it. "No, Tucker. I mean, we have a PROBLEM."

Tucker scowled, rubbing his shin as he turned to the goth chick. "Ow! Do you always have to hit me to get my atten…" his voice trailed off. Standing in the middle of the classroom and armed with a fire hose was one of the giant ghost birds.

"Hello, Schmart Kid. Goodbye, Schmart Kid." The ghost pulled back the nozzle's handle and a stream of high pressure water slammed the techno-geek back into the wall.

"Tucker!"

-------

Valerie Grey hated being helpless. Ever since Pariah Dark had invaded Amity Park and Phantom, her most hated enemy, had revealed her secret to her father, she had been effectively benched. Shortly following the incident, her father had confiscated most of her ghost hunting gear and the awesome techno-suit Vlad Masters had given her.

Most. Not all. Val had a few items stashed in her locker. Still, a few ecto grenades and one tiny blaster wasn't going to help a whole lot. If only Jazz Fenton didn't have a thing for distancing herself from her parents' ghost hunting fetish. If only Valerie dared try to raid the Fentons' RV to see if there was anything useful there. But Jazz was standing guard over the vehicle and somehow Valerie doubted the older teen would appreciate her attempts to "borrow" any Fenton tech.

She could do what Jazz was doing, stay outside the school and out of the way of the professionals. It bugged her though, because Valerie knew she could do something about the problem if she had access to her usual arsenal.

"Tucker!"

Val whipped her head back towards the school. _Sam?_ A yelp of pain followed the shouted voice. _Tucker?_ Sam and Tucker were hardly friends of Valerie, but they were friends of Danny. And lately Val had decided she wanted to get closer to Danny, which meant getting closer to his friends. Danny wasn't nearly as bad a person as she had always believed and, if she wanted to be honest with herself, he was incredibly cute. Besides, if his two loser friends were being attacked by ghosts, then they needed help from someone who knew how to fight ghosts.

And Danny's parents could hardly take on three ghosts simultaneously. Right?

The young ghost hunter scrambled back through the bushes, crawling back into the school via an open window. She jumped to her feet and ran, practically flying through the classroom door and down the hall. Ice, beef stew and other debris littered the floor, making her slip and slid. Fortunately, she managed to reach her locker without much incident. The Fentons, the ghosts and everyone else were nowhere in sight.

Adrenaline heightened her senses, but wasn't doing much for her fine motor coordination. Val's fingers slipped off the dial lock twice before she calmed herself down enough to remember her combination. The locker door finally opened beneath her touch and she quickly shoved aside her books to grab the small canvas bag in the back corner. Bag in hand, she bolted back the way she had come, not even bothering to close her locker. After all, who was going to steal anything in the middle of a ghost attack?

"You'll pay for that, Ghost Bird!" Jack Fenton's deep baritone voice echoed in the now mostly empty school.

Valerie caught sight of the brightly clad Fentons and one of the ghost birds out of the corner of her eyes as she ran past a connecting corridor. She ignored them. Sam and Tucker were only a little further down, according to her mental map of Casper High. She just had to figure out exactly where they were.

"ARGH!"

Manson's voice, right on cue. Valerie forged ahead, movement made more difficult by torrents of water splashing everywhere. She pulled an ecto-grenade out of her bag, forced her way to the classroom door the water was coming from and peaked around the corner. Foley was semi-conscious, moaning on the floor by the flagpole. He had lost his beret, his glasses and his PDA had been shattered into lots of tiny pieces around him. Valerie winced when she noticed his right arm twisted up underneath him at a funny angle.

_Ouch. That's gonna hurt when he wakes up._

"Let me go!" Sam demanded, drawing the ghost hunter's attention. Manson was hanging in the air, being wrapped up like a mummy with a fire hose. The water which had been gushing through the door slowed to a trickle as the hose tightened around the goth girl.

"Oy, enough with the shrieking and the screaming already. I'm blind, not deaf, you know," the ghost responsible for Sam's condition complained as it adjusted its glasses. "Why do I have to be the one always getting schtuck with the cleaning up and the solving of the problems? Always, I have to be doing the dirty work. The pecking and the flying and the messaging and the killing of the creepy girl and the schmart kid. I ask you, is my afterlife fair?"

_HUH?_ Valerie hesitated. _A ghost wants to kill Sam and Tucker?_

Anger followed on the heels of confusion. What the ghost was up to didn't really matter. It was a ghost and deserved utter destruction, just like every other ghost she had ever encountered.

Especially Phantom, the bane of her entire existence. He had ruined her entire life and her father's career. She wasn't about to give any other ghost an opportunity to ruin someone else's life, even if it meant her having to protect Sam Manson and Tucker Foley.

Valerie pulled the pin on her grenade and launched the weapon towards the bird. "Forget it, Featherbrain! Nobody is killing anyone on my watch!"

The ghost was faster than she expected. It flew up a bit while the grenade sailed under it and exploded against the blackboard. Sticky ecto-goo coated the wall from top to bottom, only a small portion of it getting on the ghost. Valerie grabbed another grenade from her bag, but didn't have a chance to throw it. The ghost gestured with a wing, sending Sam flying right into Valerie.

The girls tumbled in one flying heap through the door and back into the hallway. "Oooff", "Ow", they chorused as they rolled.

A figure dressed in blue and black stepped over the duo, aiming her bazooka at the ghost. "Stay away from these kids!" Mrs. Fenton declared, shooting off a round. The bird ghost yelped in alarm, turned intangible and headed up through the ceiling.

Valerie pulled herself out from under Sam, who was struggling free of the strangling loops of fire hose. "Move it, Loser."

"You first, Clone."

"Girls?" Mrs. Fenton asked. "Are you okay?"

"We're fine, Mrs. Fenton," Valerie and Sam chorused, glaring at each other.

"Good," Danny's mom replied, scanning the hallway for more spectral activity. "You two get Tucker outside the building and wait for us by the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle."

"Gladly!" Sam levered herself up with a lone crutch.

Valerie scowled._ There is no way I'm going to be side-lined by a…_

Suddenly, looming in the young teen's vision, was the black-goggled face mask of Danny's mom. There was a set to Mrs. Fenton's features that told Valerie the older woman wasn't going to listen to reason. "That wasn't a request, Valerie. Help Sam get Tucker to safety. It's too dangerous for you kids in here." Without waiting for a response, Mrs. Fenton ran off after the ghost.

Sam smirked and hopped towards Tucker. "Shall we?"

"Whatever!"

-------

"I'm so sorry, Tucker." Sam squeezed his good arm gently, attempting to comfort her best friend in his hour of grief. She kept her voice low, as appropriate for consoling someone in mourning.

Tucker sniffed and carefully nudged the pile of soaked electronic components spread across the hood of the Fenton Family Assault Vehicle. He and Sam stood by themselves as Mr. Lancer and Jazz organized the students into groups by the definitions of dirty-but-unharmed, slightly-bruised-but-still-okay, and injuries-requiring-a-doctor. Sam noticed only she and Tucker happened to be in the last group, but didn't mention it to her friend. Tucker had enough problems. She wasn't going to add to it by mentioning the dreaded "H" word.

"It's okay," Tucker replied to her concern, stifling his tears with effort. "This time, I actually bought a warranty."

"My pants! My brand new Tony Mountaintoe Capri pants!" Paulina screeched from several feet away. Sam looked over to see Star attempting to comfort the popular girl, but to no avail. Paulina was as devastated about her clothes as Tucker was about his PDA.

Sam snorted, unable to dredge up any sympathy for Paulina. Tucker actually had a right to break down sobbing. After all, he had a _real_ injury. Not that he had noticed yet. The techno-geek was completely absorbed by the devastation of his latest PDA. _Wow, and people say my priorities are screwed up._

He fumbled in his pockets for his wallet, pulling out a folded piece of paper. "See," he waved the paper at the goth, sniffing back another sob. "All under control. All I… sniff All I have to do... sniff … is take it back to the store…"

Sam took the paper and glanced at it. Then she winced. "Uh, Tucker, maybe you should have read the warranty before you bought it."

His eyes widened as he snatched the paper back from her. He tried to read it, not even realizing he didn't have his glasses on. "What are you talking about, Sam. It's a perfectly good.."

She reached over, pointing to the fine print denoted at the bottom by an asterisk. "Warranty considered void in cases of abuse, misuse or ghost attacks."

"What?" The techno-geek collapsed to his knees, good arm raised to the sky with his hand clenched into a fist. "NOOOOOOOOO! Curse you and your legalistic technobabble warranties, Circuitry Barn! Curse you!"

Those students gathered around the RV stepped away when Tucker let loose his wail of pure, unadulterated agony. Mr. Lancer headed towards the pair, obvious concern written across his face. Oddly enough, at that exact moment, the skies opened up with a downpour. Rain sheeted down, washing the PDA parts off the RV's hood.

"My baby!" the fourteen year old boy cried more quietly this time, sobbing against Sam's shoulder when she bent down to help him up. His tears mixed with the rain and he was still oblivious his injured arm. "And I had six more payments on her!"

"Relax, Mr. Foley," Mr. Lancer interjected, completely misunderstanding the cause of Tucker's pain. "I know your arm hurts, but the ambulance should be here soon."

Tucker lifted his head, his tear-streaked face suddenly ashen. "Ambulance?" he whispered in horror. "What ambulance?"

Sam groaned. She had been trying to avoid this discussion.

"The ambulance that's coming to take you and Ms. Mason to the hospital emergency room. You need to have that arm looked at by a professional."

Tucker whimpered, looking desperately to Sam for protection. "Super models," she commented. "Just remember, the nurses are actually super models in disguise."

The techno-geek nodded. "Right. Super models." For a moment he appeared to be relaxing. Then Lancer ruined everything.

"Great Expectations, Manson. Everyone knows the nurses as Amity Park general are hideous. Why are you telling Foley they're super models?"

Tucker didn't so much as groan or cry out this time. For the first time since she had known him, Sam watched as the boy's knees buckled and he fell over into a dead faint.

"Gee," she said sarcastically to the balding, out-of-shape teacher beside her, "Thanks for the moral support, Mr. Lancer."

-------

It was nearly five hours later when the frustrated, soaked and exhausted Fentons tramped into their living room and dropped onto the couch as a unit. Their jumpsuits were a mess, covered with mud and food by-products. The Fenton bazooka beeped, a warning indicator that its battery was getting low. Maddie stared at it for a second and sighed. She really didn't want to get back on her feet.

A large, warm black-gloved hand reached over and patted her on the arm. "Don't get up, Honey. I'll take care of it."

Maddie looked up into the face of her husband and smiled gratefully at him. Despite his obsession with ghosts, he was the sweetest, kindest, most caring man she had ever met. She still wasn't sure what she had done to deserve him, but she wasn't about to lose him. Forget about the guys who bought flowers, diamonds, fancy cars or large houses for their girls. It was the little things Jack did – cooking, cleaning, dishes, inventing the Specter Deflector to protect her from ghosts – that really mattered to her. She wouldn't trade her husband for anything.

"Thank you, Sweetie," she replied.

He stood, taking the Fenton Fisher and bazooka with him. Maddie pulled back the hood of her jumpsuit and slumped back, running her fingers through her hair as she dissected her frustration. The ghosts at the school were the same ones that had trashed the Fenton Works. This was the one point she did not doubt. What she wasn't sure of was why. Why had they trashed the Fenton Works? Why did they trash the school? Why had they left Jazz alone?

Because Jazz appeared to be the only student at Casper High who hadn't been attacked. Maddie's daughter had gotten out of the school building safe and sound, without so much as a speck of ghost-flung debris on her. Everyone else in Casper High had been targets, even Danny's two friends. If the birds were trying not to make an enemy of the Fentons, they had severely miscalculated. The basement lab was almost completely devastated, the Fenton's ghost hunting gadgets were mostly destroyed and one of the birds had made the mistake of mussing up Maddie's brand new jumpsuit. Those were unforgivable offenses and Maddie Fenton intended to strip those birds of their feathers before sending them back to the Ghost Zone were they belonged.

So why destroy the lab and the equipment if they didn't want to make enemies of the Fentons? Better yet, why avoid Jazz if they did want to take the Fentons down?

Did they even know Jazz was a Fenton? If not, why did she not get attacked like the other students.

"Oh, enough with this, Maddie," she chided herself. "Circular logic is not going to solve this problem."

Back to the beginning, then. What facts did she know? Danny was ill with what could be a ghost bug; or maybe not, because he did seem to be getting better. Ghosts invaded the Fenton Works and destroyed most of their ghost hunting equipment. Those same ghosts showed up at the school and terrorized all the students; all the students except for Jazz. Maddie turned the information over in her mind to no avail. The more she thought about it, the less sense any of it made. _Danny's illness might not have anything to do with the ghost attacks. After all, none of the other kids at Casper High appear to have gotten ill from their exposure to these bird ghosts._

She sighed heavily. There wasn't enough information to solve this puzzle. The only way to get this information was to capture one of the ghosts and torture the information out of it. In order to capture the ghosts, though, she and Jack would need more than the Fenton Bazooka and Fenton Fisher, which meant fixing the damage to their lab and the other ghost hunting equipment.

Hesitantly, Maddie pulled her checkbook out of one of her jumpsuits many hidden pockets and glanced at the balance. "Oh, poo!" she muttered. The total left in the account wasn't nearly enough. The Fentons would need a major cash infusion to effect the needed repairs and the next set of royalty checks for their officially registered ghost hunting patents were due for another sixty days.

Jack returned to the living room, carrying to glasses. CRUNCH-Flap. CRUNCH-Flap. "Cola?" he asked, handing her one of the glasses.

"Yes, please!" She took a sip as she dropped the checkbook on the table then frowned, looking for the source of the weird sound she had heard. "Jack, what is that stuck to your boot?"

"What?" Jack looked down at his feet. He blinked, placed his glass on the table and lifted his foot while reaching down to pick up the item in question. "It looks like a manila envelope."

He examined it briefly and exclaimed in delight, "HA! It's a ghost hunter's convention information packet!" Leaning in towards his wife, he whispered confidentially while pointing to the big red stamp below the address, "I know because it says 'Ghost Hunter's Convention Information Packet' on the front."

"Oh!" Maddie sat up straight. She didn't have to wait long to satisfy her curiosity. Jack was already ripping open the envelope. "When is it?"

He pulled out the cover letter and started reading, adding his own commentary to the letter. Two confirmation tickets fell to the ground. "'Dear Mr. and Mrs. Fenton'… Hey! That's us! '…glad to have you with us…please find registration information enclosed…'"

Maddie blinked. "Jack," she interrupted, "I haven't registered us for a ghost hunter's convention. Did you?"

Jack didn't look away from the letter. "Not that I recall. Does it matter? We've got tickets and…FREE FUDGE! Maddie, look! The first 100 people to sign in at the registration desk receive a month's worth of free home-made fudge!" Face lighting up with glee, he shoved the letter at her.

Maddie scanned it and frowned again. "Oh, Jack. We can't go to this. It starts tomorrow."

Her husband's face fell, as if she had trampled his dream. "We can't? It does? What's wrong with tomorrow?"

Maddie stood and kissed her husband on the check. He really was sweet when he wasn't forgetting things like their anniversary or their children's health problems. She answered his questions in order. "No, we can't. Yes, it does. Danny. Remember?"

Danny's name stopped Jack in his tracks. Now he really did look deflated. "Danny. I forgot."

She was about to drop the letter on the table when a bolded line of information caught her attention. _'Two lucky attendees will win a 500,000 dollar research grant_', it said. Five hundred thousand dollars? She couldn't resist the temptation. "Jack! We have to go to this convention! Look. We could win a research grant which would pay for all our repairs!"

He looked up at the stairs and bit his lower lip. "You're absolutely right, Sweetheart. We can't leave our son to fend for himself while he has a ghost virus."

The doorbell rang, startling them both onto their feet. They exchanged a look and Jack went to answer the door while Maddie put down the letter and her glass of cola.

"Can I help you?" Jack asked. Maddie moved in behind him to see a short man with greyish-green skin dressed in a nurse's uniform and carrying a medical bag.

"Congratulations," the man said in a boorish, monotone voice. "You are the winners of the Ghost Hunter's Convention 'Win a Nanny to Watch Your Kids at Home During the Convention' contest. I am the Nanny. Enjoy the convention."

Maddie canted her head to the side. " 'Win a Nanny to Watch Your Kids at Home During the Convention' contest?"

The strange man, who for a moment seemed not to be touching the ground with his feet and then suddenly was, nodded. "Yes. It's in your information packet. Surely you read it."

Jack frowned as if trying to make sense of this. "First Jazz wins a contest to D.C. and now this? What is this, some evil, ghostly scheme to separate the Fenton Family?"

The man seemed a bit startled. "What?"

Maddie giggled. She couldn't help it. Jack's comment had been exactly what she was thinking. When Jack looked at her, she giggled harder, finally breaking out into a belly-busting bout of laughter. At some point Jack joined in and the couple found themselves leaning on each other to keep themselves upright.

"Evil ghostly scheme," she chortled.

"HA, HA! As if ghosts were intelligent enough to come up with something like that!" Jack replied.

"I'll pack the bags!" Maddie headed towards their bedroom.

"I'll show the Nanny where the kitchen is!" Jack shouted out enthusiastically.

--------

Ecto-pusses tried to strangle him but he fled their tentacled grip.

_Relax, Danny. Your dad Vlad is here…_

Valerie Grey chased him down the city streets, shooting him in the leg.

..._You trust your father to protect you, don't you?_

His father, slender and just slightly taller than him, stepped out from a shadowed corner and clothes-lined the teenage ghost hunter. Valerie's throat hit his father's outstretched arm, her jet sled continuing on without her, and she slammed into the ground.

_You trust me to keep you safe?_

In his haste to escape his enemies, Danny tripped over an uneven sidewalk slab. He hit the ground face first and found himself staring at two strange pairs of boots. When he looked up, Pariah Dark, King of the Ghost Zone and his servant the Fright Knight, two of the most fearsome ghosts Danny had ever encountered, were staring down at him, eyes blazing in hatred. At the Ghost King's signal, the Fright Knight lifted his sword and swung the sharp blade down at Danny…

_Father is here, Danny…_

…only to be blocked by the orange and black clad arm of his father. Danny's father pushed away the sword, kicking the Fright Knight in the stomach. The Fright Knight howled and buckled over onto the ground, defeated. Then his dad lifted an arm and shot a bright red burst of ecto-energy into Pariah's face. The Ghost King dissolved in a shower of silver light.

"Dad?" Danny asked. He was seriously confused. "You have ghost powers?"

His white-haired father turned back to him, silently helping Danny to his feet. When Danny repeated the question, his father opened his mouth and replied, "_Relax, Danny. Your dad Vlad is here…_"

Dad?

Vlad had ghost powers. Dad had none. If Vlad was Dad, did that mean Vlad didn't have ghost powers? Or did it just mean Danny had been completely unaware of his father's abilities? Could Dad have been keeping his powers a secret from Danny the way Danny had been keeping his powers a secret from his parents?

Then again, his parents' hazmat suits did have built in weaponry. Maybe that was what Dad used to take down Pariah Dark. Vlad turned and smiled down at him. Hesitantly, Danny smiled back. Dad still loved him. Despite everything, Dad still protected him. Even when he was sound asleep.

Danny sighed. He had almost forgotten he was dreaming. The imaginary-Vlad hooked his arm around Danny's shoulder and escorted the teenager through the obstacles surrounding them. Imaginary-Vlad easily defended him from the hordes of attacking ghosts while the same voice rang through Danny's head.

…_Father is here, Danny…_

In his dreams, Danny walked down the twisted landscape representing Amity Park and hugged himself close to his father. Why was he worried about these nightmares? With Dad watching over him, everything would be just fine.

And yet, no matter how well Dad protected him, Danny was torn. On one hand, he hated his father with a passion; a tiny portion of his soul kept screaming at him "This is wrong! This is very, very wrong!" On the other hand, he loved his father as much as he loved his mother; Dad was always there when Danny really, truly needed a shoulder to lean on. These harsh, conflicting emotions were only making him feel sick to his stomach.

Unable to reconcile unadulterated hatred with unconditional love, Danny chose the only option he could think of to maintain his sanity. He did his best to ruthlessly quash the annoying little voice of doubt. "I don't want to hear it," he hissed to himself in his dreams. "I don't want to hear it, so shut up already!"

..._You trust your father to protect you, don't you?…_

"Dad. Please...help me…"

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	9. All About Danny

_Author's Note: All hail Butch Hartman, creator and owner of Danny Phantom and all characters in this story. The only thing I own is my twisted idea of a plot._

_BTW, I would like to thank everyone for all the reviews you've given. The encouragement is greatly appreciated. Also, I'm almost up to 3000 hits on this story (hurray!), though the numbers for the last chapter are still pretty low. This is a short chapter, but it's short for a reason, which will come out next chapter. As always, reviews welcome._

_As for Ormandria's accusation that I am evil… Well, all I can say is I _**am**_ a card-carrying Evil-Overlord. ) (For those of you who don't get the joke, check out EvilOverLord dot Com)._

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He tossed and turned and tossed again. He was burning and freezing by turns. Lightning crawled around his limbs. Sweat soaked his hair and clothes. The drums in his head just wouldn't stop no matter how hard he tried to silence them. At some point, he tried pushing the covers off only to find someone tucking them back up around him.

"No, Son," a voice murmured kindly as a cool, damp cloth caressed his face, wiping away the sweat. "You need to keep the blankets on or you won't get well."

Was he still dreaming? It certainly felt like it. That didn't mean much, though. It was getting nearly impossible to tell the difference between waking and sleeping. He tried to open his eyes, but they seemed glued shut. His stomach rumbled unhappily.

"Food," he moaned.

"Shhhhh. Not now. Not until you're well, Son. We don't want to take any chances. With your concussion, you might not be able to keep anything down."

"Hungry," he whimpered.

"I know, Danny. I know. As soon as you're well again, I promise, I'll cook you the best and biggest dinner you've ever had. You like flapjacks, right? Pancakes with lots of butter, tons of syrup and powdered sugar on top. That's what we'll have when you get well." Then, after a moment's pause. "Or ranchos heuvos. You get to pick."

Danny rolled on his side, trying to ignore the strange, insistent whispers filling his ears. He needed something to hold against his stomach. Instinctively, he reached for his pillow, sliding his bottom arm under it so he could pull it closer to his torso. Before he could finish the action, he was grabbed and forcibly rolled onto his back. His arm was firmly pushed down along his side.

"No, Danny. You need to sleep on your back. You need to stay still or you'll make your concussion worse."

Dad sounded aggravated. Annoyed. Guilt washed over him. What had he done to make Dad mad at him? "When?" he asked instead, not caring how pathetic his whining sounded. Waves of pain radiated out from his skull and lower leg. Could blood really boil? His felt like it was. "When will I get better?"

The damp cloth paused over his forehead then moved slowly to wipe down the back of his neck.

"Well, Son, 'when' is entirely up to you. Don't worry, though. Your father will be right here, taking care of you, until everything works itself out."

Was there a chill in those words, hidden within their comforting tones? Had he been wrong? Did his father truly accept the ghost in Danny or was he planning something involving potentially painful ghost probes? "Promise?" the teen half-ghost asked, his voice rasping harshly in his sore throat. "You promise?"

"Of course, Danie… Danny. You have my word. After all, you are my son, are you not?"

There it was again. That edge to his father's voice which sounded more callous and calculating than it did soothing. Danny shivered violently, muscles spasming as he fought down his confusion, hunger and fear. C_at venom causes hallucinations,_ he remembered. _This is all an imagination of my figment or something._

The muscle spasms hit him again. He felt himself sinking through the mattress, as if he had gone intangible, until Dad grabbed him and pulled him back up. "None of that, now, Son. It wouldn't do for your mother to see you fall through the ceiling, now would it?"

_Mom_. Did this mean Dad hadn't told her yet? How would she react when she knew?

The rainbow colored freight train roared behind his eyes, its engine chugging in time with the drums. Heat and cold flashed through him. Arms, thin and strong, wrapped around his shoulders as he continued to shake uncontrollably. There was sparse comfort in that embrace, though it was hardly his father's fault. The pain was too much. Unable to deal with being awake, Danny's mind went spiraling back into the mad nightmare world his illness had created.

-----------

The alarm clock next to him exploded, shattering his family photo. Glass flew everywhere. Danny frantically reached for the picture, but a breeze caught it and blew it out of his reach. He ran after it, the glass shards cutting into his bare feet. His room elongated, the walls and photo always staying just out of reach. The more he ran, the more his feet bled. Without warning, the room shortened and he was falling out of his window, the photo still dancing in the wind before him.

_Fly,_ he told himself as the pavement rushed up to meet him. _Fly before you get yourself killed!_

At the very last minute, seconds before he became a road kill pancake, his powers kicked in and he hovered above the street. He wasn't moving, he couldn't move. Something prevented him from going forward, but that was okay. He hadn't killed himself in the fall.

"So that's what Phantom looks like in real life," came a teenage girl's haughty tones.

Danny looked up. He was surrounded by every last person he had ever met, ghost or living mortal. At the head of the crowd was the most popular girl in school holding a newspaper with his ghost half's picture on the front cover. "Paulina?"

"Don't 'Paulina' me, Loser. I don't know what I ever saw in your Phantom half, but now that I know the truth, I want nothing to do with either of you. Don't ever look at me, talk to me or even walk in the same school corridor as me ever again."

She ripped the newspaper in two, dropping the pieces on the ground before turning her back on him and walking away. Her friend Star laughed maniacally.

"Hey, I know what we can do," Dash cried. "Let's play pin the tail on the Halfa!"

A wild roar went up from the crowd. They brandished sticks and giant push pins in their hands as they advanced on the frozen boy. Danny winced, trying in vain to push himself up in the air. No matter what he tried, though, he couldn't move. Then, the crowd was upon him and flight was impossible.

They hit him and stuck him and he was completely unable to defend himself. Even the ghosts took turns, everyone gloating at his situation. He cried out in pain. "Stop! Please, just stop!"

The answer, when it finally came, surprised him.

"Not until you submit."

The crowd stepped away from Danny and parted to allow the newcomer room to advance. It was Plasmius.

"Surrender, Daniel. Submit to me, beg my forgiveness for all the horrible things you have done to me and the way you've ruined my plans. Submit and swear to serve me for the rest of your existence."

There was no way the entire town and all his enemies could be under the evil ghost's control, was there? Panicked, Danny struggled to move, only obtaining release from his frozen state when he stopped trying to fly. He fell the remaining inches, hitting the ground with a muffled thud. There was spring to the ground as if it were more mattress than pavement, but he ignored it as he tried to scramble away from Plasmius.

The evil ghost grinned and took one step forward. "Submit, Daniel. Yield to me and your life will be so much easier."

"No!"

"Join me. Together we could rule the Ghost Zone and the entire world." Plasmius moved forward another step.

"No!"

"Join me or your friends die." A third step and Danny's enemy was right next to him. He dangled a miniaturized Sam and Tucker from his fingertips. They were tied up with strings, hanging like broken puppets.

"NO!" the boy screamed, lunging for his friends before a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Danny," a familiar tenor voice interrupted. "Do you trust me?"

He looked over his shoulder to see Vlad standing behind him. Caught between Plasmius and Vlad, he felt very confused. "I…what?"

"Do you trust me?" Vlad asked again.

"I don't understand. Dad?"

Vlad smiled. "Am I your father?"

"Yes," the teen half-ghost replied weakly.

"Say it, Danny. Say I am your father."

"Yes, you are my father."

"And do you trust me? I mean completely. I can stop this, but you have to trust me completely. Can you do that?"

"Yes. Yes, I trust you completely, Dad. Why wouldn't I?"

Vlad smirked. "Why indeed. I love you, Danny. I will do anything to protect you as long as you listen to me and promise to do what I, your father, says. Promise?"

"Yes! Please, Sam and Tucker…"

"Are safe." His father clicked his fingers together and the crowd slowly dissolved around the edges. "See? Everyone is safe. Even you. Now relax, Little Badger. I'll keep that evil horrible Jack Plasmius from ever hurting you again."

Plasmius crumbled into pieces with an expression of sheer horror in his eyes and everything went black. Even Dad had disappeared.

Yet, as Danny finally fell into a dreamless slumber, his father's voice stayed with him. Constant, reassuring and soft, it comforted him as little else could.

"_Relax, Danny. Your dad Vlad is here. I'll take care of you, I promise. Everything is going to be fine. You trust your father to protect you, don't you? You trust me to keep you safe? Father is here, Danny. Believe me, I won't let that nasty enemy of yours, Jack, ever come near you again."_

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Consciousness returned gradually, gently peeling away layer after layer of sleep's black oblivion from Danny's mind. Awareness came in drips and drabs. The incessant whispering voices were gone. The bed sheets were damp. So was the pillowcase. Morning sunlight streamed so brightly through the window, he could see it through his closed eyelids. His leg had a twinge in it, but the bite no longer hurt. Burnt cinnamon filled his mouth, made all the sharper by the sheer dryness of his throat. He couldn't swallow. Water. He needed something to drink.

It was the thirst which woke him fully; the need for something to soothe his parched throat. His eyes flickered open and that's when Danny realized he was alone in his room and it was indeed morning again. He lay in bed shivering from the chill of the bed sheets and idly wondered how long he had been asleep this time. A few random thoughts flitted through his mind at the mental question. He had the vague notion of waking several times before this and each time Dad had been there taking care of him, promising Danny would be better soon. There was the recollection of being physically restrained by Dad at least twice. Had he tried to use his powers while he was ill? It was possible his powers had gotten out of control given how he slipped in and out of some truly bizarre dreams. And then there were those strange conversations where Dad kept insisting on being told that Danny loved him, trusted him and would do whatever Dad asked of him. Or was that a dream too?

Then a surprising thought occurred to the teen half-ghost. _Does Dad think I hate him because he always tried to hunt me when I was Phantom? Is that why he wants to be sure I trust him, because I never told him my secret and he was always threatening to dissect the ghost kid?_

It was an incredible revelation which made a twisted sort of sense. His father could be a doofus sometimes, but he was an incredibly sensitive guy when it came to his family. He valued his children's opinion of him, even got hurt the one time he had overheard Danny telling Sam and Tucker 'I'm going to have to live with my father's goof-ups for the rest of my life'. That was back when Plasmius had offered a million dollar reward to 'competent ghost hunters' for the capture Inviso-Bill (as Phantom was called back then). It was all a twisted plot to get Danny to hate his own father and for Plasmius to steal Dad's ghost portal while Danny was distracted and chaos ensued in Amity Park. In the end, however, Plasmius's plot had failed and Danny gained a new-found respect for his father when Dad had beaten the pants off the evil ghost.

Of course, if Dad still thought Danny didn't respect him or was holding a grudge for every instance when the elder ghost hunter had tried to capture or destroy Phantom, then he _would_ question his son about love and trust. Given everything that had happened between the two of them, it was only natural for Vlad to assume Danny resented him.

_First order of business, make sure Dad knows how much I really do love him and that I never hated him for doing his job, even if it did inconvenience me once in a while._

_Make that the second on the list,_ he thought as he tried to sit up and his body absolutely refused to obey the mental command. Danny's first order of business was to assess his physical condition and figure out how he could get out of bed.

He flexed his fingers, rotated his hands and feet, and proceeded to carefully stretch his muscles while still lying in bed. The pain in his leg and back had mostly disappeared, though he could still feel twinges if he tried to stretch too much, and the tiny knot of pain in the base of his neck wasn't headache-sized proportions any more. _And that's the good news._

The bad news was that he was weak. Weaker than he ever remembered feeling. His body didn't want to obey his commands to move and it took a lot of effort to do the physical check of his faculties. He had gone so far past the point of hunger his stomach felt nauseous at the mere thought of food and his skin was clammy-dry.

Alarm bells went off in his head. Danny knew enough about first aid to be worried. If the pillowcase and sheets were damp but his skin was chilled and bone dry, it could only be because he had sweated out all the moisture in his body while he was sleeping. This meant he was badly dehydrated, a condition which could seriously injure or actually kill his human half if it didn't get rectified soon. Worse, muscle weakness made it impossible for him to go downstairs to get water and food for himself. So, if Dad didn't return soon, Danny was going to be in a lot of trouble.

_Dad won't abandon me. He promised he would be here for me, no matter what. I just hope he hasn't gone down into the basement lab to fix the equipment. If he did, I might not see him all day._

Movement was impossible. So was shouting. He simply didn't have enough saliva in his mouth to speak. Despair sent its icy tendrils into his heart as the boy glanced around his room for something he could reach, something he could use to make a loud noise. That's when he saw it. The pillow he had placed on his nightstand to cover the ecto-blast burn had been removed and in its place was his family photo.

He smiled. He couldn't help it. There he was, seven years old, sitting miserably in the chair of honor, his sister making faces beside him, his father Vlad grinning proudly, slender hands resting on Danny's tiny shoulders, and Mom holding the cake Dad had destroyed in his quest for all things sugary. "Hoppy day, Dan", the cake declared, finger trails in the frosting and frosting stains on Vlad's gloved fingers. Danny hated that photo and yet here was the proof of how much his father actually loved him. The picture was in a completely new frame with brand new glass, proof positive Dad had taken it from Danny's room the other day and fixed it.

Despair trickled away replaced by calm. _Dad won't forget me. He might have gone down to the lab, but he won't lose track of time. He might even be taking a nap if he really was up with me all night. Dad will remember. He'll be back soon. I know he will._

Danny closed his eyes again, letting his thoughts drift since there was nothing else he could do. _I love you, Dad. I would never hate you. And now you know the truth about my ghostly powers and you love me anyway. My life is perfect._

_I just wish I wasn't so darn thirsty._

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	10. Chapter 9

_Author's Notes: Yikes. Such an apology do I owe to you all for the length of time since my last post, but if you check my Profile, you'll find I've been very busy. I'm getting published for real! Short stories only at the moment, but hey, every little bit helps. And I've been asked to write a third story due for being published in April or May! Whoo Hoo! The second antho will even be on Amazon shortly. I'm sooooo excited._

_Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. As you can tell, things are starting to pick up. I'm always interested in reviews, so please let me know what you think of the story. And let me know if you have any questions. BTW, Resurrection also has a new chapter (posted last week). _

_I've got thoughts a brewin' about a possible cross-over, so let me know if you'd like to see Buffy, DC Universe—if so what hero(s)—, or Ghostbusters. I won't start the cross-over until Do Overs is done, though. Also, if anyone can tell me where I can find third season DP, I'd greatly appreciate it as I missed most of the season and every time I turn on Nick, I see sponges, fairies, Josh/Drake and Zoey. It's quite annoying to keep missing DP. _

_Lastly, source material. In case any of you are interested, I found the following links really really interesting[ and [http://en. and great references for this chapter and the rest of this story. If you can't see the links above, I'll repost them on my Profile page. _

_-----------------------------------------_

_The following Sunday night -_

_"Ain't nothing human 'bout the…human race…"_

Sam started, nearly dropping her book as she recognized the Alan Parson's Project song she had chosen as her personal ring tone. She grabbed the cell phone, looking anxiously at the caller id, then growled deep in her throat when she realized who it was. She debated not answering. Changed her mind when she realized the caller would just fill up her voice mail; space she was saving for that important call she didn't want to miss. Angry and annoyed, she answered the call with a curt, "What?"

"Umm, hi, Sam. So, how are things going?" came the reply, forced cheeriness threaded through what sounded suspiciously like true worry.

"Same as they were going an hour ago, and the hour before that and the hour before that," the goth girl retorted. All weekend she had been receiving these calls. Since, in fact, the bird ghost attack at Casper three days ago. And not just her. Tucker had mentioned he was getting the same calls, though he was more cheerful about it. Something about being the caller being "the only other non-family female who calls me instead me trying to call her and getting hung up on." Unlike her best friend, Sam was heartily sick of the whole deal. It was time for her caller to feel some pain. "I'm working on a paper for Mr. Lancer, Valerie. I don't have time for you to keep calling me every hour on the hour. So, spill it! What do you want with me?"

"I…uh, just want to make sure you're okay. You know, no additional injuries since you sprained your ankle. No…weird stuff happening around your house. Want me to come over? I can help you study."

Sam blinked in surprise. The offer coming from the ghost-hunting teen sounded almost genuine But this was Valerie. The Val that, as a former member of the A-List crowd, had always degraded and teased Sam, never being in the slightest bit nice. The same girl who, several months ago, had even used first Tucker, then Danny in an attempt to get information on "Inviso-Bill" so she could revenge herself upon the ghost boy. If their shared past had been different, if Val had once been nice to her or wasn't trying to manipulate Danny by flirting with him, Sam would have been flattered by the offer. As it was, the goth was sure this was Valerie's latest scheme to get close to Danny and she wasn't going to have any part of it.

"No."

"But Sam," Valerie protested. "I'm really good with history. Honest!"

Sam didn't give an inch. Coldly, she replied, "What a pity this is about mythology, not history."

"Same thing!"

"No, it's not. Now what do you really want?"

A heavy sigh could be heard from the other end of the connection. Sam could just see Valerie hanging her head, weighing her options. Finally, the other girl answered. "You…haven't been attacked again, have you?"

"Huh?" This was the last thing she expected from Valerie.

"The bird ghosts, from the school. I overheard them threatening you and Tucker. You're okay, right? They haven't tried to hurt either of you since last Wednesday? I mean, you'd at least call the Fentons if they attacked again, right?"

Sam's finger hovered above the disconnect button as she tried to process what Valerie just told her. _Valerie's trying to protect us? No way! There has to be another explanation._ Her mind frantically sought one while she sat speechless on her bed.

"Sam? Sam, is something wrong?"

"I'm fine," she finally hissed, deciding this was just another of Val's tricks to get close to Danny. "I don't need a babysitter and neither does Tucker. Now, if you don't mind, I'm waiting for a phone call. An _important_ phone call, so stay off my line!"

She disconnected the call. Took a deep breath and hit speed-dial number 2. She heard some static on the line for a moment before it started ringing at the other end. One ring, wait, two rings, wait. _Darnit, Tucker, pick up!_ And he finally did, at the start of the fourth ring.

"Tucker, it's me," she said just as he desperately asked, "Have you heard?"

"Heard?" Now she was confused.

"From Danny. Have you heard from Danny?" Her techno-geek friend sounded exasperated. He had a right to be. In the rush to tell him about her most recent brush with smothering ala' Val, she had completely forgotten about the important phone call they were both waiting for.

"No. Nothing. I must have left him six messages on his cell phone voice mail, plus the three on the Fentons' answering machine, but he hasn't called me back yet."

Tucker cursed, a nasty word Sam hadn't realized he knew.

"Tucker!"

"Sorry." She could almost hear him blush over the phone. "It's just, I've left five messages on the Fentons' machine and I think I just filled up his cell's voice mail box. Some thing's wrong, Sam. Seriously wrong. I mean, the Fentons' haven't picked up the phone once. Even when they're busy, they pick up if they're home. Right?"

Sam sighed. Her anger at Valerie's high-handed behavior melted as depression and worry settled. No, worry wasn't the thing. It was more like panic. Neither of them had heard from Danny in over four days. Not since the morning when he said he was staying home another day from school.

Of course, after the attack at Casper, Tucker had been in the hospital. At first only to get a cast on his arm, but he had freaked out so badly, the doctor insisted on keeping him two days to treat him for shock. Sam literally had to show up and rescue him, informing the doctor - and Tucker's parents - that the shock wasn't from the arm injury but his having to stay in the hospital. She proved her point by grabbing the wheelchair Tucker was sitting in and pushing it out the hospital's main entrance. Facing away from the "horrible building", Tucker had quickly recovered, jumping up in such an enthusiastic manner he almost pushed the wheelchair over Sam's bad foot. For two days, she had gotten wrapped up in Tucker's little soap opera and didn't have a chance to think of Danny. By the time she did have a chance, it was the weekend and both teens had a ton of homework to catch up on.

So, they dutifully stayed home studying, calling Danny every few hours to touch base, calling each other a few times, steadily getting more concerned as they eagerly watched their phones for a reply.

"They always have before," she told Tucker as guilt added itself to the emotional stew churning in her belly. "Unless they're out hunting down those bird ghosts. You know how prr-occupied the Fentons can get. Danny says they'll even forget to eat if there's a ghost around."

"Yeah. I suppose." Tucker didn't sound convinced. "I'm this close to going over to his house and breaking the door down."

"It's late. There's no way my parents will let me out of the house, especially with this foot injury."

Tucker sighed heavily again. He didn't like it when she was logical, she knew, but she couldn't just say "Let's go" without warning him about the consequences.

"Yeah," he answered finally, a dull note to his voice. "I suppose. My parents would probably flip if I went out this late at night.

Sam wanted to hug him. Or maybe she just wanted someone to hug her. This wasn't the way things were supposed to be. Her, Tucker and Danny were a team. There was nothing the three of them couldn't do when they worked together. They were each others' strength. Which made it all the more painful on those occasions when Danny took off trying to save the world by himself. Or when they were separated for other reasons, like the week she and Tucker had gone totally mortal-combat over meat being removed from the school menu in exchange for the vegan turfwiches she loved so much.

"Tomorrow after school?" she suggested. "Assuming he doesn't show up tomorrow either."

"He'll show up! He'd better show up if he knows what's good for him. Maybe we should stuff him in his locker for scaring us like this." The techno-geek chuckled weakly to show he was joking.

"Or toss him in the lake at the park," she rejoined, her spirits rising a bit.

"What about letting the mutant hot dogs loose while he's trying to eat his lunch?"

Sam laughed. "We'll team up against him in Doomed. That'll teach him to mess with our heads."

Tucker really did chuckle this time. "No. I've got a better idea. We make him be techno-goth for a week. Half techno-geek, half-goth. Even dressing the part and carrying the gear!"

The image of Danny Fenton dressed in black, wearing black eyeliner and lipstick, a USB drive hanging from a nose ring and a PDA hanging from a dog-chain belt suddenly popped into Sam's head. She doubled over, tears streaming down her face because she was laughing so hard at the mental picture. That's what she told herself to justify her sobs, anyway.

At least while she and Tucker were laughing, the small logical voice in her head wasn't telling her something horrible had happened to Danny.

-----------

The party was on in full swing and Jazz was finally getting annoyed. It wouldn't have been so bad if the party had been in someone else's hotel room. She could deal with that. Unfortunately, it was her three roommates who decided to hold a party for practically every single person in the Students For America program, which meant if she wanted to leave the party to study or something, she'd have to go down to the hotel lobby. She certainly wasn't going to be able to go to sleep. The music was too loud and at least six people had crowded onto her cot. The beds weren't any better. One of them had been taken up entirely with pizza boxes, chip bags and two-liter bottles of soda. Not to mention the crumbs. The other had more people on it than her cot did. That group was playing some strange collectible card game. Danny would know what it was, Jazz was sure. She certainly didn't.

Frustrated, she had a budding headache from the chaos, Jazz picked her way carefully around the people clumped on the floor, chatting away with each other. The closet was blocked, so she couldn't fetch any of her gear. Not that she needed the few pieces of ghost hunting gear she had brought with her. Washington, D.C. didn't have ghosts. At least, it didn't have ghosts that terrorized the population. With a sigh, she detoured to the nightstand to grab her most recent edition of "Wilhelm Wundt's theories on the Psychology of the Senses" and her cell phone. Most of the other students didn't even notice her leave, though she almost ran over a guy who was walking into the room with a bucket of ice.

"Scuse me," she said as she scrunched herself sideways past him.

"No prob!" came the enthusiastic reply. "We need more dip if yer headin' out."

_There are plenty of dips in the room already_, she wanted to say. Instead, Jazz nodded noncommittally, knowing the other student couldn't see her as she escaped the frenzy and hurried down the corridor.

_Finally!_ _Peace and quiet, _she thought as she ran down the stairs instead of waiting for the slow elevators. Not that she wasn't enjoying the program, but she had expected more of the students to be quiet, studious and…well, more like herself.

The first thing she did when she got to the lobby was pick an out-of-the-way chair and check her voice mail as she plopped down into it. There were no new messages. Not that she expected any. Even if her parents had nailed the bird ghosts, they were probably buried in the lab trying to repair everything that had been broken by the attack on the Fenton Works. And then there was Danny. Heaven forbid he should ever admit to her that he needed help with something. _If he calls me while I'm in D.C., my first reaction will be to think the end of the world is iminient._

Jazz chuckled as she slipped her phone in her back pocket and opened her book. It was written by a member of the psychological community who was well known for his preposterous theories and his work on the so-called science of para-psychology, one Dr. Peter Venkman. Most serious psychologists considered him a crackpot. Jazz had been leaning in that direction until she accidentally discovered a few older articles by Dr. Venkman regarding the psychology of ghosts and a human mental condition he called "ghost envy". The articles had struck a nerve with her. The first because it explained a lot about what Spectra had done to the students of Casper High when the misery-eating ghost was pretending to be the school counselor. The second because, well, Dr. Venkman's case studies acted a lot like her parents did.

In any case, she had since changed her mind about this so-called crackpot, relegating him to the ranks of the inspired-but-misunderstood-geniuses-of-his-time. Not that she would admit this to anyone. Instead, she quietly read the few items he did publish, and reading his paranormal-related stuff only at home where no one else could see.

This particular book was about the Father of Psychology and his theories about how the mind was affected by the senses. It was quite fascinating, all about stimuli—external and internal—and how different events could affect the way people reacted to the world. Not just events, either. Venkman argued how food, drugs, and music could be used to alter perceptions.

_In the classic science fiction B-movie genre, the protagonist is brainwashed using a combination of drugs, sensory deprivation and repetitive negative stimuli. A good example for this would be the more popular "Manchurian Candidate" starring Frank Sinatra. The stimuli are applied in such a way that undermines the protagonist's fundamental belief system and offers a new structure to which our "hero" clings to in a desperate attempt to find security and stability..._

Jazz shuddered as she read the paragraph. Visions of Spectra, the ghost who had played school counselor in order to feed off the misery of teenagers, filled her head. Dr. Venkman was describing exactly what the ghost had done to Danny, and practically every other student at Casper High. But Danny was the one Jazz worried about the most. Spectra had done such a number on her little brother that there were days when it seemed he still hadn't recovered completely.

_Danny._ It had been three days. Jazz wondered if he was feeling any better. She put aside the book and stared at her cell phone. _I should call. No, I shouldn't. Danny hates the overprotective sister act. What if he's still sick, though? What if ghosts are attacking and he needs help? I'd never forgive myself if he got hurt because I was too wrapped up in my own pursuits._

She flipped open the cover and connected to the web, searching the news sites for any hint of ghost activity in Amity Park. Nothing. Not so much as a tidbit from the major news organizations. Which meant one of two things. Either there was no ghost activity happening in Amity Park or what was happening was so normal—or what passed for normal in her hometown—that no one was bothering to report it.

_I should still call,_ she told herself. Then she scowled, putting away her phone again. _Tomorrow. If I haven't heard anything from my parents, I'll call tomorrow. How bad can things possibly be?_

_After all, it's not like Mom and Dad would ever abandon Danny when he's that sick. Right?_

Sighing, Jazz picked up her book and put her little brother out of her mind. She couldn't protect him all the time and she knew their parents would take care of him no matter what.

--------------------------

_Monday Morning -_

Sam was putting the finishing touches on her homework assignment when she found the Wikipedia article on shapeshifting. Something about the article called for her attention. So while she waited alone on Casper's front steps for the school day to began, she read it. Then laughed.

"What's so funny?" Tuck asked, plopping down beside her. The two of them were the first ones at the school that day and there was irony in the fact that they had both arrived thirty minutes early to wait for a friend who was perpetually fifteen minutes late.

"Wikipedia," she responded. "Listen to this. _There are many different styles of shapeshifting to be seen. One is the literal bodily alteration where the body physically changes. Depending on what the subject is changing into, the different parts of the body will shift, stretch, compress, and expand...A second style is what can be called the 'fold over'. In this transformation, the subject new flesh forms overtop of their original. In a sense, it is almost as if they are wearing a body over another, and their old form is underneath. _"

"Ew, that's gross!"

"Wait," the goth girl interrupted "It gets better. Read part three and tell me if you see anything familiar."

Tucker took her cell phone and continued to read. "_The third is the fastest and most convenient type of shapeshifting. In this style the subject in a sense has two separate bodies that they can freely switch between. Such being can be found in the Harry Potter series, in which they are known as Animagus. This change is always intentional and won't harm clothing, or any other article on the body. Injuries sustained on either of the bodies usually don't carry onto each other (Animagus in Harry Potter being an exception), although death of one of the forms usually results in the death of both forms and the individual in question. During the shapeshift, there sometimes is a moment when the subject seems to disappear._"

Sam grinned when Tucker blinked and looked up in shock. "And?" she asked knowingly.

"Hey! That's Danny!"

"Tell me about it. Cool, huh?"

"How did you find this?"

"Google. I was making sure I hadn't missed anything on my Zeus paper and just stumbled across this."

Tucker adjusted his glasses with a chuckle. "We have so got to share this with him when he comes in today."

"Yeah."

The pair looked at each other, checked their watches and then checked their messages, Sam on her cell phone, Tucker on his PDA. When Sam glanced back up, she could tell her friend didn't have a message from Danny either. A shiver went up her spine.

"I'm giving him till lunch," Tucker commented as if he didn't believe Danny would show for the day.

"He'll be here," Sam tried to convince herself.

Tucker frowned and dialed the Fenton's house. The phone rang and rang until finally the answering machine picked up with Maddie Fenton's voice.

"Thank you for calling the Fenton Works, home of Amity Park's best ghost hunting team. If this is a ghost emergency, please press one. If this is not a ghost emergency, please leave a message after the beep and we'll get back to you as soon as we're available. Have a ghost-free day!"

The two teens didn't even wait for the long beep to finish before starting their message. "Danny, call us..."

"I'm sorry," a mechanical voice interrupted "This mail box is full."

The call disconnected itself, leaving a long dial tone hanging in the air.

------------------------------------

Daniel screamed, twisting and turning against the blankets on his bed. Vlad moved to the bed, holding and soothing the boy with soft words. He was pleasantly surprised when Danny opened his eyes and said "Dad?"

Holding back a triumphant grin was hard, but Vlad dared not jeopardize the plan, so he turned it into a concerned smile. "Am I your father?"

Danny appeared confused. The boy's eyes wandered around the room as his body twitched. "Yes," he finally replied in a weak voice, not looking at Vlad at all.

That's when the older half-ghost realized what was happening. _Daniel's still dreaming._ He almost laughed. "Say it, Danny. Say I am your father."

And the boy obliged.

_Oh, Goodie Gumdrops! I'm ahead of schedule. Only four days of work and the boy is already mine!_

But Vlad had to be sure. "And do you trust me? I mean completely. I can stop this, but you have to trust me completely. Can you do that?"

"Yes. Yes, I trust you completely, Dad. Why wouldn't I?"

The boy was pathetic, and terribly easy to break. He looked so fragile there, upon his bed, pale, sweating, desperate. For a moment, a bit of concern for Daniel's welfare worked itself into Vlad's heart. Only for a moment, though. Vlad dismissed the concern and smirked.

"Why indeed?" he asked himself, then went on to murmur platitudes in his son's ear.

"...Please, Sam and Tucker..." the boy begged.

Sam and Tucker. Vlad bit his lip in sudden rage, his eyes flashing red for the briefest of moments. _Oh, Cinnamon Rolls! Why is it every time I get a break, something else goes wrong? I have got to get rid of those fool friends of his!_

"Are safe." Vlad snapped his fingers in frustration, then reached down and gently closed the boy's eyes. "See? Everyone is safe. Even you. Now relax, Little Badger. I'll keep that evil horrible Jack Plasmius from ever hurting you again."

The words seemed to work. Moments later, Danny was slumbering peacefully again. Vlad strode out of the room, closing the door quietly, then stomped down the stairs Jack Fenton style.

"I could kill them," he said conversationally to the empty air around him. "But would Daniel accept that? He might actually try to find out how they died and end up tracking it back to me."

"No, this has to be more subtle. More painful. I have to permanently separate those two from my son."

Vlad sat on the couch and picked up Jack's needlepoint hoop. He always had to work so hard for everything in his life while Jack just stood around being stupid and having everything fall in his lap.

"Idiot. It's all your fault. My accident, my losing Maddie. You betrayed me! Stole my wife and son from me. It's only fair I steal them back."

Fuming, he threw the hoop into the air and destroyed it with an ecto-burst. "Some best friend you are, Jack Fenton. I hope you choke to death when you find out how much Daniel now hates you!"

The charcoaled remains of cotton and plastic drifted to the floor. One bit remained whole, a green-embroidered bit of ghost head with one red eye. Vlad growled at it, preparing to throw another ecto-blast at it when inspiration struck.

"Your betrayal destroyed our friendship, Jack," he said in wonder. "Oh, yes, that could work!"

Vlad transformed from Masters to Plasmius and ghosted down into the Fenton's basement lab where his the three vulture ghosts were creating nests out of the debris.

"Enough with that nonsense," he yelled. "Into the ghost zone! I need you to find someone for me."

"Oy, more fetching?" the lead vulture complained. "Who are ve lookin' for this time?"

Vlad's eyes shimmered red with satisfaction as an evil grin crossed his face. "Bertrand. He hangs out with Spectra. Tell him I'll make it worth his while if he does a little job for me."


End file.
